A First!

OK, so I dreaded working in the Fourth Department yesterday.  I have to say this: For the first time ever working by myself back there, I got out of there in time.  Yes, my friends, I actually pulled an eight-, and just an eight-, hour day!  Well, OK, I went over by, like, 20 minutes.  Seriously, though, I have not gotten anywhere near leaving after eight hours after a day in the Fourth Department, and besides, I usually stay an extra 20 minutes.  So this is like leaving early!

I was blessed with a light workload in a lot of areas.  I usually am bombarded for requests as to when a result for a test comes in.  Those usually take a lot of time researching and e-mailing people, and that's usually between tasks in which I am waist-deep.  Those tasks are usually faxing and e-mailing people to retrieve information that we need, and there are a lot of categories into which all these forms are separated into, I have to treat each category differently.  I'm usually inundated with so many forms in all categories that I sometimes nudge up to the ten-hour workday limit I have set for myself before I just have to leave and abandon the rest of the work I couldn't get to.

Well, the main reason I was able to leave on time was because I didn't get too many forms in any of the categories.  For example, we have to touch a form when we initially get them; there were only seven forms yesterday when I sometimes get up to two dozen.  After three days, we have to take another shot at contacting people to retrieve the missing information.  This category isn't too bad, and the four here is way manageable.  After five days we take a third and final swing and reach out to anybody who can tell us what the hell is missing.  There were seven of those, which actually is average.  Finally, if we do get responses, we have to process the forms.  That takes time, but I didn't get too many responses back.  That might be the end result of not sending out a whole lot of faxes and e-mails from the start, but regardless, I didn't get many responses back before I got to leave.

Another time suck with this job is just BS that comes up.  There sometimes are issues involving ... something where I am at a complete loss as to what to do.  In cases like this, I have to go to my supervisor and beg for her help.  And by the time I remember to do what she told me to do, I have to regather my bearings and remember where I left off.  That takes a lot of time; I think I likened that to spinning around an aircraft carrier at sea 180 degrees.  I just cannot think that fast or else I will completely miss steps and then sit there for several minutes figuring out what steps I missed, then take even more time to go back and do those steps.  Honestly, there were as much, if not more, of those stupid unicorn cases that it took most of the morning to start dealing with them.  Thank goodness, then, I didn't get as many requests or forms as I feared.  That meant that the time I had to borrow to deal with these special cases I made up by zipping through the relatively meager amount of forms and responses.

Finally, what I dread the most is having unpleasant interactions with prick clients.  There was one back-and-forth with some stubborn woman who would just not give me the code that I needed.  I e-mailed her back saying that the number she gave me was not in our system, to which she replied that I mixed it up with another number she gave me.  I think she thought she put one on me, but I replied that, while I did mix it up, the actual number she intended to give me also was not in our system.  Finally, someone from a different department in my company -- a person who this arrogant nutjob asked to "help me understand" all the wrong codes she gave me -- said that our laboratory did something wrong.  I've been replaying this insufferable woman's crap from time to time tonight, but I don't feel -- feel being the operative word -- as upset as I felt after dealing with this prick because here, a third party dropped in, deus ex machina style, and said a party beside me and this dumb lady made a mistake.  That absolves me of any responsibility.

Sure, she probably thinks I'm stupid.  She's wrong.  I think she's stupid.  I'm right.

---

So, with all that said, karma can be a bitch.  Everything I was spared from yesterday is coming back on me twice as hard and worse today, isn't it?

Sure, I'll Postpone Hanging Out With My Friend For Two Hours Plus To Deliver Egg Rolls, Why Not?

Yeah, so seeing my friend at the start of the Italy-Austria Match didn't happen exactly as I planned.

My parents decided to make a big feast of egg rolls, amongst other stuff, for lunch.  Excellent stuff; I loved it.  In exchange for doing so much work in the afternoon, they told me they wouldn't be making dinner that evening.  Cool; I might use that free chicken sandwich I got for signing up through the Wendy's app after seeing my friend.

Then Mother told me that she was texting with my sister-in-law: "Hey, can you bring deliver some egg rolls to them?"  They live about 45 minutes away.

Now, I have, in the past, when I was a juvenile, not been able to contain how frustrated, and even upset, I got when my parents told me to do something, especially when I had planned to do other things.  And even though I didn't throw my egg roll down and throw a tantrum, which I had down I was a kid, I could not, in that moment, help but let out a little, "Shit."  To which Mother said she could do it herself, but that's ridiculous because she's in her sixties and it was going to rain, and besides, I felt bad for acting as though I didn't want to deliver egg rolls to my brother's place, even though I really didn't.  So I said I would.

But that meant I had to push back my coffee hangout with my friend.  But by how long?  That was difficult to calculate, even after checking on Google Maps that it'd be about 45 minutes down to where they live, then another 50 minutes back up, past the house, then to the coffeeshop we agreed to hang out in.  On top of that, I had to wait while Mother packed up the egg rolls, and I have to confess that I was scrolling on my phone so long that Mother had probably already packed them in a paper bag.  Oh, and I had to use the bathroom a few times, too.  Let's just say having it come out is the price I am willing to pay for it to taste so good coming in.

I don't remember the trip down there taking so long.  But the last time I went down there was Christmastime 2019, so I could be wrong.  Plus the rain might have slowed me down, or at least slowed down the cars in front of me.  I pushed the time I was going to see my friend to 3, then 3:45, then 4, and even then I didn't show up to the coffeeshop I thought we were going to (we had our wires crossed; I went to a different Caribou then the one she found online; the one I went to closed down and the one she found has no seats inside) until 4:15.  But no matter; once we found a place (I might blog post about this later; this was sort of an adventure and relates to coming out of the pandemic), we stayed and talked for about 90 minutes -- just like I thought we would.  Good times, even if I had to push our time back two hours plus.  And I did use that free chicken sandwich from Wendy's late in the evening.

They're On To Me

So Sunday was kind of a shitshow at work.  For the second time, I stayed longer than I should have.  A lot longer.  Like, six hours as opposed to four.  I think labor laws dictate that once you are working six hours, you are supposed to take a half-hour unpaid lunch.  Didn't do that, and I still think that is a mess that my bosses are going to have to clean up for me.

I was under the impression that I would have to stay late.  Shortly after I got there, I was told by one of the lab workers that the shipment of pee samples was late.  Therefore, I thought that I had to prepare to stay a bit late because the lab workers were going to be late shoveling out the forms to me, which means I will be late in keying and processing them before shoving those folders down the line and getting out of there.  Before my four hours were up, I shouted to the lab workers something to the effect of, "Hey, are you still going to be sending forms my way?"  And the two people there -- one of them whose face seems familiar to me, one who is new, neither of whom I remember working on Sundays because, as I found out yesterday, the person who was working at that position on Sundays left the company -- talked to each other a little bit before one of them said, "Yeah."  Just like I thought.

So I waited.  Well, I didn't wait.  There were other types of forms I had to work on, and so I did them (slowly -- this will be an important point later in the story) while keeping an eye out on forms that I would need to scan and do.  What I got, however, were empty folders.  They need to be done in a technical sense, but I was told on Sundays that if there were no forms in a folder, those folders could bypass data entry; they can be handed off from the techs in one department to the techs in another.  As I have learned, on Sundays these empty folders usually are the last ones to come out.  Also, I was told that if they are the only ones left to be done, I do not need to do them, even if they are passed to our area.  I can leave.  Actually, I think I had been told by my higher-ups that I should leave under those circumstances.

That wasn't the case here -- well, at least I was not led to believe that would be the case.  But as the minutes dragged on, I would see from across the hall an empty folder, and then several minutes later another empty, and so on.  Soon, I was bumping up to the magical threshold of six hours (plus I wanted to get the hell out of there), and the important work I thought I had to stick around for I was still waiting for.  So I go up to them and ask again, "Hey, are there more folders coming?"  And the two guys had a skull session before one of them said, "Nope.  All empties from here on out!"  That's great, but ... did you know that all you gave me the fifth and sixth hours I was there were empty folders?

---

I work for a company whose employees scrutinize work.  I like a company, and people, who are serious about it.  Then again, if the scrutiny is about my work, well, I don't like that

Monday morning my other boss e-mailed me while I was filing stuff away.  She wondered why I worked six hours on Sunday.  She's doing her job and checking my work, I understand.  So I explain why I stayed so late.  She appeared to, uh, not really care about that per se.  Instead, she gave me a screenshot of work I did not of the two extra hours I stayed, but the first two hours.  I told her what I was doing ... and that was the end of it.

Now to yesterday.  Well, let me back up ... these days, overtime usually is not given.  However, there have been several weeks so far this year where there has been extra work and so we have been given the opportunity to either stay late or come in early to work.  When that happens, there is no need to worry about technically working more than 40 hours.  However, when overtime for a week is not granted, the company is coming down hard on not working more than 40 hours.  I get, like, a three-minute cushion with which I can go over.  But if I'm at, like, 40.06 hours for a week, apparently my bosses catch hell for that, and that would certainly roll down onto me.

I have been banking on a sudden bubble of work to pulsate through the building this week.  The week's not over.  But if overtime were to be offered, it most likely would have been to either come in early yesterday or stay after yesterday.  That did not happen.  With a full day on Wednesday, that would thus mean that I can only work ten more hours (give or take) today and tomorrow.  My boss wasn't banking on that.  He assumed I would be working twelve hours these next two days.  (If I do a half-day on Sunday and I'm limited to 40 hours, that means I would have take another half-day Monday through Friday -- do you see what I mean?)  I could have waited till this afternoon for a Hail Mary of work to come through, thereby authorizing OT, but if it didn't come through, I would be working eight hours today and thus only a measly two hours Friday, and like I said, my boss isn't prepared for that ... especially if he didn't know I worked six on Sunday.

So I had to raise the issue with him.  Just before I left yesterday I had to let him know what happened on Sunday and that as a result, I was at ten hours left.  I am scheduled to fill in for someone in Filing Friday morning, then leave.  If I'm a sub, I don't think I can deviate from the four hours I'm committed to, which means I would be working only six today.  So I tossed out that suggestion, and he agreed.  And then he asked if I could speak with him about Sunday.  Great.

I had a meeting with him about the miscommunication and the ultimately unnecessary need to stay that late.  But that didn't really bother him at all; he just chalked it up to people not knowing how things are done on Sundays.  What really bothered him was, uh, my lack of production my first two hours, the same hours my other boss noted to me Monday morning.

Honestly, I wasn't dilly-dallying.  There are those other folders that I needed to go through and rub out all the mistakes.  In particular (and I won't bore you with the details), there are a subset of these forms that are fairly important to push down the conveyor belt.  That's not the main priority; those other forms are.  But frequently on Sundays, as you're waiting for those very important forms to pass through the window, you have these slightly-less important forms that are still important, and so you do those in order to fill in the rest of your day (which, again, for me, is supposed to be only four hours).  These particular folders are important because many of them have outright mistakes on the forms.  The name is illegible, or the code on the form doesn't match the one attached to the sample, etc.  There is a process by which you are supposed to look at the discrepancy and decide which errors you can overlook and which you have to keep for others to investigate.  These important folders are ones that have, like, 30 forms, most of which have a discrepancy.  So going through them takes time.  And I took my time to do it right, even though, like my boss intimated in our meeting, other people can do it faster.  And so he talked about how I could be more productive when it comes to that particular job, as well as being "visible" by keying in programs whose metrics can be looked at by supervisors like my bosses.

So that wasn't great.  What I thought was the biggest problem with what went down on Sunday was in fact an ancillary issue to my bosses, and the real problem according to them was something I didn't see coming at all.  But I'll confess something.  I wasn't half-assing it on Sunday, and I usually don't on Sundays.  But could I go faster going through these forms, and these folders?  Yeah.  I don't really want to.  Why?  Because it's Sunday and no one's there to pick over my work.  Sure, they pick over my work the next day, but not while I'm there that day, and I feel like that difference is real, not illusory.

And it doesn't really matter because this time next month another person will be working Sundays so I won't have to anymore.  The focus on speeding up my rate of production, however, will remain.  Yep.  They're on to me.

Sorry, Young Man, I Just Wanted Some Sanitizer

So after work on Sunday I decided not to walk in the park because it was cloudy and windy and relatively cold.  Instead, I went to Potluck, the new food court at Rosedale.  For the past two months they're "celebrating" ranch dressing, which I guess is a thing with White people?  But it's good, and to "celebrate," nearly all the stalls have special foods with ranch as an ingredient.  It lasts through the end of the month.  Wanted a quiet Sunday afternoon off by myself, so I went.

I decided to get a biscuit from the, uh, biscuit place; they had a special ranch-flavored gravy or something.  Not bad.  But the wait was long, even interminable; they got caught flat-footed with the gravy and I guess it took a lot of time to make some.  In the meantime, I thought I should clean my hands.

Around this particular area of the food court, there are hand sanitizer stations, of course.  But people need to do a better job of filling them.  I see empty stations in many places, and it happened when I walked up to the one right at the entrance to the rest of the mall.  So I cast my eyes around for another station.  That's when I saw a hand sanitizer pump on the counter for another place, one besides the biscuit place.  I didn't think nuthin' of going up there and using it.  But I didn't see the guy who was manning the cash register, just hanging out while sitting in a chair far from the cash register.  And when he saw me approach the front he bolted up as if to take my order, but then he quickly sat down as soon as he saw that I was just going for the hand sanitizer.  But when I saw him get up and then sit down, I made this sheepish look like I was saying, "Oh, sorry dude, just using the hand sanitizer!"

I didn't mean to trick the guy.  But I feel so guilty that he thought I was going to order something when I didn't that, I'm serious, I feel as though I need to buy something from him when I go to Rosedale again.  You know, just to make up for this mix-up.  I might go over there tomorrow, in fact.

Oh my God -- my boss just texted me about a folder that he says I handled that has now gone missing.  First of all, I don't even remember the type of folder he's talking about.  Second of all, this happened Sunday, and I barely remember what I did this morning.  And third of all, he told me the time of day this was supposed to have happened, and from what little I do remember (and I do remember a little), around that time I checked out no folders.  Around that time I didn't handle folders at all.  I was doing data entry.

This really pisses me off because that fucking guy is either losing his shit over something I didn't do (... well, something I don't think I did) or is the one making the accusation to my boss that I put something in our system saying I did one thing to this folder when I did another.  Maybe this is all a mix-up.  Or, this motherfucker really has it in for me.

Goddamn, I was hoping that things would go smoothly second shift this week, and there has been nothing but obstacle after obstacle ... and that asshole's a part of my stress.  And I don't appreciate it.

Addendum To: So, How Do I React To This?

I don't think I followed up with on my blog post about getting this condescending e-mail about my work and talking myself down from going all apeshit on it.  Well, as soon as I got into work the next day I went up to my supervisor, the person who sent me that e-mail, and like I said on my reply to her, I wanted to know what exactly she saw on this queue that led her to believe that I needed to do them.  I really, really wanted her to recreate the queue, even though she took care of both items, because (and I don't say this with any pride) I don't remember if I actually saw those items or, if I read her correctly, I really did not check before I left for the day.

In this software there is a title line for each of these, um, cases.  When my supervisor either re-created the queue or at least found the cases she did instead, I looked at the title lines.  I did not have a "Eureka!" moment, but from the words I saw, I think I in fact did see them, which meant I did check the queue.  My supervisor said I was not trained to do one of the things.  The other I could have done; the title line for that case said that an affidavit for information I myself asked for from the person who collected this urine sample came in.  However, the information did not get back to The Third Department, aka the department I was working in.  Rather, the collector sent the missing information to the client liaison for my company who handles that collector/account, who in turn passed it along to The Third Department via the queue on this software.  What I was supposed to do, according to my supervisor, was open up the case, save the copy of the affidavit that was attached on this software, and appropriately process the application for this urine sample because all the information that needed to be collected had now been collected.  To repeat: This was information I sought.  However, that information wasn't given back directly to me.

In retrospect, I think I was trained on the possibility that could have happened, but it was very brief and so long ago.  My supervisor had to tell/remind me that affidavits can come back to us this way, and so we are expected to process information we receive indirectly.  I told her that even though I may have been told this, it's been a long time.  So when I saw that title line of this case, I didn't see any words for which I immediately figured out I could do it, and therefore I left that, as well as the other case, alone on the queue.  My ignorance was my defense.  And better to leave something than to do something wrong.

I think my supervisor accepted my excuse.  She told me to look out for things like that from now on, and I could use more training on the fringe, uncommon things that could occur in The Third Department.  And that was it.  And she seemed more chill than upset.

I'll take it.

And Now For Something More Awkward

So, beyond the shitty phone call. ...

Just finished the last of two nights of second shift in filing.  It wasn't bad.  The back half of my night, from about 5:30 on, flies by, but that's because I'm so busy doing work by myself.  But that "by myself" part is key: I absolutely love my nights there.  I think I still might underestimate how much I like a work environment in which no one is literally or figuratively in my space.

Still, things aren't perfect.  In fact, there were a few times where I just bleepin' didn't know what I was supposed to do.  I had to text my supervisor, who technically was off work but invited me to ask her any questions if I got stuck.  God bless her.

But another thing went awry last/Thursday evening that still grinds my gears.  In short, there was something that told me I needed to send a form over to a different department.  But I was wrong; I needed to fax this form instead.  This was brought to my attention by my supervisor this (Friday) afternoon, but yesterday (Thursday) someone from The Third Department I Work In brought it to my attention ... even though this mix-up has nothing to do with her or the department she is in.

She brought it to my attention because someone from that department literally walked into filing.  In fact, I remember seeing this person from the other department look at me and slow down as if she wanted to tell me something ... but decided against it and brought it to this other person instead.  Why?  She knows that this person has nothing to do with this form and how it was supposed to be handled.  Moreover, she had to go through the filing department in order to reach This Third Department, and she saw me working in fiing.  Why couldn't she have asked me?  Is it because she thought I was the one who made the mistake and was so disgusted by me that she wants nothing to do with me?  If that's the case -- well, shit, we've got a problem then, don't we?

At any rate -- AWKWARD!!!

Don't Mind Me, I'm A Hypocrite

These pandemic weekends, when I hear my parents bickering outside my bedroom, all I can think of is either, "Dammit, I wish I had the house all to myself," or, "Dammit, I wish I could just go out!"

This weekend, yesterday afternoon and now, my parents have left the house -- taking care of one of their properties, I think.  I have the house all to myself.  But do you know what I'm now thinking, and doing?  Going out.  I have reasons; I went to the Floyd Memorial on 38th and Chicago yesterday because I was curious, and today because my friend at USC wants to interview me about Floyd tomorrow on his podcast.  (Oh, and there's a stripper girlfriend I want to meet there.  She was there yesterday but I couldn't find her.  I'll try and again this afternoon, but she hasn't told me if she was going to be there.)  But I should be happy that I have peace and quiet in the house all by my lonesome, and the only urge I have in my mind is to get out.

So don't mind me the next time I bitch about this.  I'm a hypocrite.

OK, My First Blog Post Of 2020 Is A Rant

OK, at work yesterday (so 2019), I was filing to fill out the rest of my day.  My former supervisor, who is not just a worker, notified me of this request form.  When I see this request form, I know that we are looking for ... an application.  This guy said that he could not look up the folder for which we could find it.  He did not say that we were looking for this application.  Apparently, that makes a difference.

He told me to wait and look for it later.  Circled back to it near the end of my day.  Looked it up, and I saw the folder in which I should be able to find it.  So, because this has been requested (other people need to do something to the urine sample connected to this application), I go the folder to fetch this application.  But I don't see it.  At all.  So I assume that I looked up the wrong number.

At the end of the day, while I was on my way out, I told the guy I couldn't find it.  I was hoping he was just going to say he'll take care of it later, but instead, he wanted to take this request form and take a second look right then and there.

"Here's the number," he basically said.  "You wrote it down."

And I basically went, what?  See, I wrote this number on the request form, but since I couldn't find it, I crossed it out.  So I told him, "Well, I couldn't find it, see ..." and I went back to the box where all the folder were ... and there is the folder whose number I initially found.  Oh, I guess I could have just waited until all the folders came in, and then I could find the app.

But I was trying to find the app, and it wasn't there.  I mean ... that is the point, right?  See, he's seeing that I found out where it was, and then for some reason I crossed it out.  I'm thinking that since I couldn't find the application, that number is wrong.  We're looking for two different things.  Well, maybe not different -- you take one step, and then you take that other step.  The way he described it, he just wanted me to take the next step.  My thing is the bottom line, finding the app, and I was not able to "get there," so to speak.  We were not talking about the same thing.

So why in the hell didn't he just say he wanted me to look for the thing he wanted me to look for?  I guess it didn't dawn on me that someone else had not put in the number of the folder this app would be in, that that number was the only thing that he was waiting on.  So, why didn't he just say, "I just need the number."  Or, better yet, just say that the application hasn't come in and try to find it if it comes and it's OK if it doesn't.  Why are you asking me to look up the number when the point is to find the damn application?  And now he probably thinks I'm stupid.  Oh, fuck, he probably thinks I'm stupid already.  Well, I know that the other people in the department don't think that highly of him.

Eh, whatever, we wished each other Happy New Year.  Maybe this is all a lot of nuttin'.

Farewell To 2019

I wish I had more time to ruminate on this, but I endeavor to publish this before the clock strikes midnight.

All in all, an uneventful year.  Well, the continuing dread by the leadership installed to run this nation casts a palpable pall over the entire world and, I've got to say, my general mood.  But beyond the direction of our country, I have no complaints.  I'm getting into a groove at my full-time job (mix-up today in the filing department notwithstanding, and I assume things will just blow over).  My entire family remains healthy.  I think that my parents and I are having fewer fights, which is a good thing.  And my sex life, while expensive, remains healthy.  My erect penis is trying to find back Father Time with every stripper party.

When it comes to momentous occasions, I will point out two.  The first is the week I worked for the Final Four.  Nothing really beats working the Super Bowl, a more important sporting event.  But for six days I worked at a hobby job that I still pine can become something akin to a full-time job in the vocation I still dream of working in.  Oh, and I got paid handsomely for those six days, too.

But come to think of it, the most momentous thing of 2019 is a bad thing ... and it happened just eight days ago.  The closing of My Favorite Stripclub (Non-Cover Version) is something that I still have not processed.  In fact, right now I am actively avoiding even driving around the area lest I look up and see its lights off or, worse, parts of the building already torn off.  I'm not sure if I can wait that long, but I'm not sure if, after a sufficient amount of time, I do drive past the area and see an entire vacant lot, or the thing that's supposed to come after it, whether it be condominiums or a gym.  It truly was My Home Away From Home.  It was a tradition for me to go there after working Vikings Games, but after Sunday, I had to remind myself not to instinctively drive back there because it's closed.  I have no home away from home to go to.  Now, that may save me money.  But, first of all, the stripper diaspora has told me where they now work, and if I make it a habit of visiting all of them at these clubs that do charge cover fees and exorbitant prices on drinks, I could lose even more money.  And second of all ... well, of course it's not the same.  One of my most cherished establishments is now a memory.  And even though I'm so grateful for all the stripper girlfriends who'll give me handjobs and blowjobs for a certain price, dammit, I'll miss that place.

So, so long, 2019.  And so long, BJ's.

This Mileage Request Shit Is Getting Weirder

I was thinking that Monday, to get Mother off my back but to also genuinely get to the bottom of all this, I would call the airline to see why Mother's flights have been rejected when Father received miles for the exact same flights.  For help I would ask Mother to yell at me in the background.  That way, the representative would hear that she would be flying off the handle and sympathize with me when I say I'm stepping in to help her get her miles.

Well, I checked my parents' e-mail last (Saturday) night and the airline actually replied to me (posing as them).  They took fault for not getting the mileage in on time, saying that there have been "glitches in the software."  OK, maybe that will explain the "too-late" code one of Mother's flights was given.

But the the rep e-mailing back said that they are beginning the process of getting miles for Mother's flight ... from Paris to Vienna.  WHAT?!?!?!  Now, my parents were in Europe, and I assume they have boarding passes for all those flights.  So what the hell is this rep talking about?  And how in the hell do you mix up the names of cities?!

I ... I ... don't even know where to begin.

I planned on watching The Amazing Race last night instead of the start of Game 3 of the NBA Finals because I had missed the past several episodes because of the night test scoring job and, well, forgetting.  But I remembered that it was going to be on ... at 8 Central Time.

It wasn't.  I flipped my TV to Channel 4 to see the preview of next week's TAR.  That's when I realized that it was on from 7 to 8.  I swear it was 8 to 9 the only time I've seen this season, namely the first!

Two things that make me angry with myself.  One is not getting the time right; knowing me, the show's premiere episode was on at 7 and I somehow believed it was on at 8.  And second, I had the TV on the whole time.  It was on Channel 5, so I was watching (well, I was semi-watching; I was playing around with my computer) the Kimmel "Game Night" special and then the preview of the game.  (I knew the game was on at 8; maybe I got confused?)  I never thought of just surfing channels and seeing what was on 4.

(sigh) And now I'll miss next week's episode because I'm watching a soccer match at Allianz.  FML.

Phew! Potentially Dodged A Bullet From Mother

I could not do what I wanted to do last evening (most notably packing my things for my vacation this weekend) because, once again, Mother wanted me to do something that hijacked my entire evening.  (OK, maybe not; maybe if I just put my nose to the grindstone I could finish packing.  But why do that when I have a ready-made excuse?)

She said that she needed me to check up on a credit card bill I paid while they were gone on vacation.  She got another bill that showed that the previous month's bill was not paid, and therefore my parents were hit with a late fee and interest.  And the interest was going to be huge because the bill was in the thousands.

So I called.  I got spooked by a security question I was asked; I was going to talk about it because I felt humiliated, but it doesn't matter compared to what happened next.  I called a second time, got another person, and was told that I needed to call another department which, at that time, had an hour-long wait.  Once I told Mother, she, who was extremely bent out-of-shape over paying money she didn't think she should pay, decided not to wait and spent an hour in her office holding on the phone.

In the meantime I retreated back up to my bedroom.  But I still was able to hear Mother because her office is right below my bedroom.  I was also able to hear her because when she gets upset, my God, she becomes a bitch on wheels.  The yelling and anger I heard her spew on the poor representative who got her call was humiliating and, honestly, familiar.  Remember that when I grew up, I didn't really see her because she and Father worked at The Store from sun-up till sun-down.  All they did then was retreat downstairs and immediately take a shower together, whereby Mother would just bitch and bitch and bitch and bitch at Father for something.  And she did the exact same damn thing last night.

Customer service always seems to bug her.  She gets her dander up as a defense mechanism just so she won't get screwed over by people to whom she's giving money.  That is great when, for example, I needed to get my new car -- I mean, fuck car salesmen, they're dirty anyway, amirite?  I see myself in her whenever she is outraged at something that hits her checkbook.  I learned to yell because of her, to be quite frank.  Anyway, acting petty and juvenile over a late payment when the person on the other end of the line did nothing to impose a late fee and interest, is, to put it mildly, is unwarranted.  But she didn't care.  I don't know if she was screaming because she wanted someone to waive the late fee and interest or because she was really angry.  Probably both.  But eventually, another person (maybe it was the manager Mother demanded while on her tirade) got on the phone and gave her everything she wanted: A waiver of the late fee on the statement and interest that may have accrued in exchange for paying off the original charge right then and there.

Glad that is over.  And yet I could not help but look at her with complete disgust while this embarrassment was going on.  So what if she got what she wanted?  There were much better ways to prove that I paid on time.  Why couldn't she just give the rep on the phone the Confirmation Number I wrote down for her, precisely for cases such as this?  But that's not my retirement-age Mother's style.  No, she will raise fucking hell until she gets what she wants.  Raising her voice, making up lies, accusing the other person -- all to "prove" she was right.  And being on the other side of that often -- especially the accusations, which I hate about her -- confirms once again why my main relations with other women consists of money for sex.  Mother fucking ruined me.

Oh, here's the kicker: There's a chance, a very small chance, that this may have been my fault.  You see, while my parents were away, there was a bill I paid which I subsequently cancelled.  I remember that (did I blog about this?) because I needed to thumb through a checkbook in order to enter the account number online.  For this particular bill I found the checkbook Mother wanted me to use to pay.  But after I established the payment, I looked through the checkbook again and saw that, for some goddamn reason, there was another set of checks, from a completely different account (and therefore a completely different account number) within this checkbook.  I entered the wrong number, and so I needed to cancel that payment and set up another payment with the right number.

I am almost 100% sure that the bill for which I originally cancelled a payment I subsequently re-did.  In other words, there's almost no chance that I somehow overlooked paying this bill.  Not only could I not because I did pay attention, but 1) this was a huge bill that 2) Mother actually called home to tell me about.  On top of that, I got a Confirmation Number.  How could I cancel a payment after I wrote down its Confirmation Number?

Well, that's the thing.  Maybe ... I did set up a payment, realized I put in the wrong account to pay for that payment, cancelled it ... and that was it.  The poor phone rep who took My Fucking Mother's wrath insisted that someone (namely me) established a payment two days before the day I said I paid the bill, and then she said that that payment was cancelled, and there was no activity after that.  I really don't think that cancelled payment was the one I wrote down on the statement for Mother -- but am I 100% sure?  Don't tell Mother, but ... no.

Doesn't matter.  She berated the credit card company into removing the late fee and interest.  (After she got off the phone she cut up that credit card; knee-jerk reactions are another thing I learned from her.)  But I have to honest about one other thing: I am so, so glad she doesn't believe I screwed up.  During her call, she asked Father to ask me if I cancelled the payment.  I told him, and then her (after I went downstairs to her office and overheard the resolution to the call).  Now, I didn't completely lie to her.  I did cancel a payment, but I don't know if that is this payment, and even if it was, I am almost certain I replaced it with a good payment.  But am I completely certain?  No.

Mother believed me instead of the credit card company, however.  So don't bother Mother.  Let her believe those people are snakes.  And let me be at peace.

Should say that with everything that I've been busy with over the past week -- State Fair, my dick pain, my potential pink eye, the mix-up with watching our alma mater's game, working the Vikes game over the weekend, recuperating from working the Vikes game over the weekend, and using my free Hooters coupon -- I sort-of realized all throughout the week that this was the opening week at the U.  If I wanted to go back to school, in all likelihood I would have needed to enroll these past five days ... ending yesterday/Monday.

I did not.  Now, I have looked and there are some, like, online classes that may start whenever.  But if I were serious about going back to school, I would have done something by now.  And I did not do anything, therefore. ...

Such Is Life In The Naked City

Been at Glam Doll since a quarter to 10.  Thought they were celebrating their five-year anniversary, replete with a make-your-own-donut bar and a burlesque dancer, but that's the other place, the one closer to home.  Whoops.

I've taken the time to catch up on my receipts when I see fire trucks and police cars drive up to the restaurant across the street.  Just before this I notice a girl talking into a phone in desperation.  I go back to my receipts, but then I hear: "Excuse me ..." and then this same girl sits down in the chair across from me, almost knocking over my laptop in the process.

She then gets into this spiel I don't quite understand.  She needs to use either my phone or my computer to contact her mom and dad, but she doesn't know either's phone number.  She then says that she's been locked in the basement (presumably in the restaurant across the street) and she complains that no one is helping her.

I hated what I was compelled to say to her.  I think other people would tell her to buzz off.  But -- and I could be totally naive here -- I think there might be so truth to what she's saying.  I don't know about the mom and dad and trying to contact them even though she doesn't know their phone numbers stuff.  But I have heard cases of people being locked up against their will, and a few times I have heard this, it's been in restaurants.  This could be my paranoia running away with my senses, but I could -- could -- believe she just got out of a locked basement and needs somebody's help.

However, against my self-regard as a nice Minnesotan, what I thought is what I said: "I'm sorry, I don't know how to help you."  My BS detector was just pinging off the hook too much and too loudly to help her, even though I couldn't quite understand how I could help her.  A tear had rolled down her eye, but after I turned her away, she got up and went back to the seat she was in when she made that call.  I lost track of her, only seeing her again through the Glam Doll windows.  She came back out through the restaurant when the cops finally came.  She was speaking to them, and I lost interest.

As of right now I see the flashing blues of the only fire truck and police car still on the scene.  I hope I can make it out to my car without incident.

And to think it's simple and easy living in Minneapolis!

OK, So About That Previous Blog Post?/Blogger Bug?

The thing is, I wanted to post-date it.  I finished it near the end of last night, but I wanted to Schedule it for 2:30 this (Saturday) morning because I wanted to make sure I had a daily post for today/Saturday as I head off to the Super Bowl.  But I forgot, and so it published when I got done with it, which was, like, 15 minutes before midnight.  So I had two posts for yesterday, which I didn't plan.

So here's where it gets interesting.  Once I realized that the blog post had been posted for the world to see, I tried to take it back.  I tried to re-Schedule it for about 2:45 into the future.  So I clicked on Edit, clicked on Schedule on the right side of the Blogger screen, and scheduled it.  I actually thought it worked, that no one saw me publish it, then take it back for future publishing.  But I was foiled.  One, some dude (more like a bot from Russia) already looked at it, so retracting it may have been too late to retract it before a "person" saw it.  And two, I saw that there wasn't a special "Scheduled" note next to that blog post.  It was time-stamped 2:30 a.m., even though by this point it was, like, ten minutes to midnight.  And then I Viewed it to see my blog the same way you people see my blog, and that blog post was dated Saturday the 3rd at a time of 2:30 a.m.  In other words ... I POSTED INTO THE FUTURE!!!

You can't post into the future, of course.  But you shouldn't really time-stamp for a time in the future either, right?  So how come I could circumvent that by immediately publishing it, then deciding to publish it for a future date?  That seems like a bug of some sort.  Either allow me to pull back a post and Schedule it so that people can't see that blog post until the time I specify, or don't allow me to pull a post back at all.  At any rate, I now have to make sure I blog post for today.  Then again, me mixing up the blog post that was supposed to be for today gave me a reason to blog post today.

You know?

Whoops, Wait A Second. ...

Just realized this in the minutes before my alarm sounded: In an hour's time or so I am going to an interview for another temp agency.  I was asked to bring a list of references.  One of the references is a recruiter for the temp agency I'm currently doing business with ... and the one that I found a job with.

Uh, is it dishonest to go looking for temp work when I already have temp work lined up?  I could say that I didn't want to break off the interview.  I could also say that I thought I was interviewing for a particular job, but that job was taken by the time I set up the interview (that was what the interviewer said), so in essence I'm not really going in for any interview, so why not come in?

I just wonder if someone's going to catch me on something.  Not lying per se, but not giving the whole truth.  Man, did I pay for a shave and am I going to dress up for something like this?

A Grievance I Need To Air This Festivus

So I went to a Barnes & Noble to buy something for my niece.  I saw they had a table for gift-wrapping, and I remember having my gifts wrapped there a previous year.  So I came back another day and asked what the gift-wrapping schedule was.  She said there is no schedule; there is always someone who knows how to wrap a gift there at all times.  Great!

So I wake up early today and drive down there since it opens at 8 for the holiday season.  I not have the gift I bought from B&N but two other things from two different places.  And I kept each of those items in the original bag the cashiers put them in.  Probably a big mistake.  Because when I went up to the cashier to request them be wrapped, she said, "Yes, we do wrap them, but only gifts bought here."  And I will admit I was a bit curt to her when she asked for someone to wrap that gift.  I said no, I made a waving motion, and I got out of there.  (I stayed in the mall, though, to pick up some Tim Hortons.)

You know, in retrospect, maybe I should not have assumed that B&N would wrap all of a person's gifts.  But when I had gifts wrapped there before there was no issue.  Besides, what's the big damn deal?  She said that they don't wrap presents from other places because it's a "security issue."  What the hell does that mean?

So I have to stay out late again tonight.  I have to give this to my sister-in-law in the morning.

So tired.  So damn tired I will not be able to perform in the Feats Of Strength on Saturday.

The Perils Of Wearing Your Concert T-Shirt

So the U2 concert wasn't as good as it could have been.  I say that because I got kind of sour on the experience.  I made quick friends with the guy standing next to me -- I even ate some of the peanuts he offered me -- but I was trying to save his spot on the rail for half an hour as he excused himself to go to the bathroom during intermission, and the fucker never came back.  (Saw him on my way out.  Asshole probably went to his seat, where he was supposed to sit, and not tell us.)  Then there were some drunk assholes who kept bumping into me.  Oh, and I thought I had a great vantage point of the show: Far away, but straight as the crow flies to the Joshua Tree stage with no one in front of me blocking my sightline.  But then U2 came out and the row of chairs in front of me stood up.  I did not realize that 1) people would stand for the show and 2) that row is on the same level as me standing.  So the people in front of me stood up, the blocked my view ... just like watching any concert.  Oh, and don't get me started on the sound.  Ooooooosbahnk Stadium is a terrible venue for concerts.

Nevertheless I like U2.  I had dreams that this band, who had made it a point to never look back in nostalgia, would play The Joshua Tree in its entirety, and they did Friday, although I could barely hear them at points and Bono looked really tired at the end of the concert.  So, like a rube, I bought a concert tee for $40.  And because I wanted to start a conversation, I decided to wear it the next day, to soccer-watching downtown in the morning followed by a food truck/community festival/fundraiser for Meals On Wheels at a brewery about 15 minutes away from where I live.

No one made a comment about my shirt at the bar.  Maybe it's because U2's an Irish band and I was at a British pub.  About a half-dozen people at this outdoor fest commented on it, however -- not that I noticed.  The first guy who brought up my t-shirt was sitting down; he turned to me and said something like, "Bad, wasn't it?" and I turned towards him all, "What did you say?"  He didn't gesture to my t-shirt.  He didn't gesture at all; he just turned around and said something in my general direction.  Only did he explain himself did I finally realize he was trying to start a conversation with the t-shirt with which I wanted to start a conversation.  It would've helped if the dude said something like, "Excuse me" first.

With that in mind, my social skills swung totally in the opposite direction when I sat down at one of the communal benches to eat a Chilean burrito.  A group of six (three men, three women) sat down in the same bench.  The guy who sat next to me went, "Who did you go with?"  And this time I was prepared; I think I said something like: "I went by myself, none of my friends are fans."  To which he replied, "I meant what are you eating."  Whoops!  But like that first guy, he could have been more specific; why didn't he ask, "What are you eating?" the first time?

The public mix-ups got better during the rest of the fundraiser.  The four-to-five other people who stopped me went (including one of the workers at the food truck) and they all wanted to know what I thought.  I echoed the common sentiment that the sound sucked, and I told one person that I thought Bono noticeably ran out of gas starting from the end of The Joshua Tree.  Those conversations started off right and they finished right -- just like I hoped!

Up-And-Down Day At Work

OK, I invoice at my current job.  And I left work yesterday with a few invoices in this ... uh, software that I couldn't get out for some reason.  That made me dread and thus hate going back there.

It got worse, but not because of those stuck invoices.  Actually, the guy sitting in the cubicle next to mine helped me; he didn't really solve the problem so much as find a way around it.  I actually felt a sense of relief, but it didn't last long.  First I got an e-mail from a woman who pointedly demanded invoices that I didn't have.  I think she wasn't just upset about that, but was also upset that I had not responded to her first e-mail from last week.

That was what I was kind of going through in the morning: Reading all the e-mails and printing out all the tickets to which I would create invoices.  And there were a lot.  I mean, a lot.  But what really fucked me over is the fact that most of these invoices are for the prior week -- August 28 to September 1.  I don't know if this is best practices (to use a white-collar office term that I hate), but I was told I needed to separate August and September charges.  I forgot that wrinkle this afternoon when I started invoicing, so I had to ask the person next to me how to erase the invoices I already made.  He told me to just delete them.  I still am wary about it; I told my co-worker that it's frustrating to feel as though that I can't come back if I make an innocent step.  I get the feeling that I'm creating a snail trail of papers that I'm not accounting, and that will boomerang on me before this is all over, but really, I was so fucking pissed at how little progress I made that at that point that, frankly, I don't care.  I just want to get this done.

Things got better through the late afternoon.  I printed out all the things I needed to print out.  Better yet, I got a handle (even though I'm not completely done) of the companies whose charges straddle the turn of the month.  Best of all, I started invoicing companies for stuff in August, just like yesterday, and I was able to print.  Don't know what the deal was yesterday, but I'll just count my blessings.

So I feel as though I can muddle through the rest of the week.  There are some invoices from companies I haven't even heard of, but I think I'll just ask what I need to do with them.  Hopefully I won't forget any more steps that I have to backtrack from, I'll push out all the invoices I can tomorrow, and even though I'm not supposed to, I'll get the rest done Friday.  Besides, I am only supposed to work 30 hours a week; if I can't get it done, hey, what can I do?

I know this means I'll have a shitty day tomorrow.  I guarantee it.