"global warming is a good thing, right"

aaahhh, another day, another stupid co-worker story...
todays story started with my complaint of the unusually hot weather we have been having here in central PA for the past few days. yesterday hit 92 and was very humid. the grammatically challenged co-worker said that it has been getting this warm this early for the past couple of years...i responded with, 'and they say global warming is an urban legend'...part of her reponse is what i have put in the title of this post...'global warming is a good thing, right, cause it would make our winters less cold and it would be warmer all the time?' wow...not that i expect all people i talk to, to have a clue, but seriously at least have a bit of a clue of the dangers of global warming.

i proceeded to explain to her, that actually global warming will do the exact opposite of what she thinks. it could put us into another ice age...
i made the mistake of going on to explain to her what exactly would happen, and she told me i was exaggerating and that it wouldn't happen like that.

here is an excerpt from a site i found on one of the theories of how global warming could affect our planet...

"The second theory goes by the name of Abrupt Climate Change. It suggests that catastrophic results of global warming might not occur gradually, as most have expected, but quite suddenly - within a few years. This theory also starts with the melting of glaciers and sea ice, but involves the dilution of seawater's salinity - or salt content - that results. That salt content is a key element in an ocean current that takes heat from the tropics northward and cold water southward and in the process moderates temperatures in the Eastern United States and much of Europe.
The collapse of this so-called conveyor could, in the worst case, produce a new ice age. The best case would give us severe winters, increasingly violent storms, flooding, drought and high winds around the globe, disrupting food production and energy supplies and raising sea levels high enough to flood coastal cities and make them unlivable.
These are not predictions but real possibilities - far more possible today than scientists had previously believed. And while the politicos in the White House continue to stick their heads in the sand, some at the Pentagon have taken on the task of studying the national- security implications of Abrupt Climate Change. "

even after telling her this, she thought i was dumb, and hasn't spoken to me for the rest of the day...and actually she closed a door in my face when i was walking into the building after lunch...

it is a joy every day working with this level of immaturity... ;-)

i am just too nice...

sorry but i have another work complaint...
i work with those type of co-workers who hate to help others. there is something i am trying to work on today, that i really need my one co-worker to help out with. she is the one responsible for part of this new test, i have the other half of it, and in order to fully test this change we both need to do our part, however, she doesn't feel this is part of her job. all day i have been trying to work around her lack of wanting to do work, and now at 4 o'clock i have run out of options...without her peice of this, i can't do my part...this is just so freaking frustrating. i don't want to run to the boss and get her in trouble, really i have enough problems with my co-workers, i can't be that person that runs to the boss when they don't do their jobs. but this is really annoying. so i just sent her an email and copied some other people on it, hopefully seeing that others are aware of her lack of work will motivated her to help me out!

keep your fingers crossed! usually this just pisses them off and then they run to the boss and complain about me. seriously i work with some great people! ;-)

cats are funny

this is a picture of my aunt and uncle's cat, Smokey...she drinks out of their bird feeder...it was too funny, and cute not to take a picture of her.

socially awkward

i have always been a bit uncomfortable in social settings. as a child i would hide behind my parents at public events, it made me feel uneasy when strange people would talk to me, so it was just easier to hide. as an adult i have not really overcome that feeling of trying to hide in public...i did however discover that with enough alcohol social situations are a piece of cake, but that often just leads to not remember things that were said, which takes my uncomfortableness to a whole new level. given all of this, it may come as a surprise that i don't really embarrass that easily. or maybe i am so adjusted to the social awkwardness that had plagued my life, that when situations that could be embarrassing happen, they seem old and tired...since they happen all the time to me.

all of this really is leading to something...

so today, i am sitting at work, having a horrendous allergy day. i had taken my glasses off to put some visine allergy eye drops in, and i was having a really difficult time getting the drops to hit my eye, instead it was just rolling down my cheeks. so here i am sitting at my desk, bent backwards looking at the ceiling trying to get the damn drops in my eyes, muttering to myself about how this isn't that difficult, why the hell do i keep missing my eyes, when a fellow co-worker stops at my desk and just stares at me. now i don't have my glasses on, so i can't see a damn thing! when i realize that he is standing there, i just shrug and say, sorry i was talking to my eye drops...he continues to stare and shakes his head walking away. sure it sounds like it would be really embarrassing...kind of like that time when i lost my balance getting out of my car in the driveway...acting as if it were intentional, or that i was practicing for a role as a stunt double...while i am quickly looking around to make sure none of the neighbors saw me (by the way this was yesterday when i got home from work!)...but really all of these things just seem very minor to me. i can laugh them off and get over the sheer humiliation of how ridiculous my life has become...i have learned to embrace and love my social awkwardness, it defines me, as the nerd that i really am.

My Parents House

My parents have lived in their current house for about 9 years. I was 20 when they moved into the house. So I didn't really grow up there, and really I only lived there for about 2-3 years before I moved out on my own. But for some reason I really have a strong connection to their house. So it was really sad when they made the decision to move...this all started a few weeks back. They got it into their heads that they need a smaller house. Really I didn't think it was going to go anywhere. But then while I was in Prague, they found a house, and started considering putting theirs on the market. Yesterday their house officially went up for sale, and by 8 pm last night, their house was sold. Yep, their house sold in about 15 hours. Wow! So today I am a bit sad. Like I said I don't really have a logical reason for being upset, I didn't grow up in this house or even live there for very long. But I just really like it. It is a nice house. And I am sad to see them move out of it.

I have been trying to come up with reason why I am sad about this move...and so far I have nothing...
When I was born my parents lived in a small house in the town of Palmyra, PA. By the time I was 6 months old they moved into another house, this time in Hershey, PA. I loved this house. It was a big, old farmhouse, but it was right on a main street and really not a good location. It had lots of big rooms, and hallways and all kinds of neat places to play and hide as a kid.

We moved from this house when I was about 12 years old. It was hard to move but the next house we lived in was even better, it was a cute little cape cod style house, again in Hershey. It wasn't a big house, but it was really nice and had a great backyard. Plus it was in a great neighborhood. Unlike the last house, it wasn't on a main street, it was on a quiet back street, with little traffic. The street had those adorable street lamps, and the neighborhood was full of kids for my younger brother and I to play with. It was really nice growing up there.

However, we moved again...this time I was 19. I really didn't want to move from this house, but at the time it seemed like a good change. We moved to a house in the middle of nowhere in Newville, PA. My parents moved there for a work opportunity. It was nice, but at the age of 19 it was really hard for me to make friends. I spend most of my time either back in Hershey, or by myself in Newville. We didn't spend too much time at this house. The work opportunity ended up not working out for my parents and we moved by the time I was 20. To the current house they are living in, the one that sold in less than a day.

I guess my feeling is that I will have no connection to the next house they live in. I will have never lived there, it is not my house. It is their house...
The whole thing is just really sad... :-(

ass kissing and more...

yesterday at work (no surprise there right?!), my boss took her team out to lunch. it wasn't anything special, we just all met at the olive garden. it was of course really awkward and most every one seem really uncomfortable engaging in small talk with each other. i found this totally amusing...watching a group of people who so clearly detest each other try to figure out how to nicely speak to one another over lunch. even my boss seemed really uneasy. but the best part of the whole thing was my grammatically challenged co-worker...she of course, sat right next to my boss and proceeded to chat the entire time. but it wasn't just normal chatter, it was like a monkey chattering at the zoo to all the strangers walking by. there was no purpose to it or any kind of intent...she just sat there chattering...even after it became very clear that my boss wasn't paying any attention, she chattered on...it was the most forward display of ass kissing i have ever seen. of course in my head all i could think of was the phrase, 'ass kissery'...not sure why, but i thougt it was funny.

my boss has this tick, when things are said that annoy her, she gets this twitch above her left eye. it is really obvious, at least to me, when this happens, she starts to rub the area above her eye in irritation. there have been plenty of times while talking to her that i have noticed this twitch and i know to quickly spin whatever it is that i am saying to her in order to stop the twitching. grammatically challenged co-worker doesn't have this kind of observation...
so as you can imagine it is awesome to watch! she just keeps talking and talking and talking, completely oblivious that she is annoying the hell out of everyone around her, most of all the boss! really i think i have some kind of sickness! :-)

in other news, today, the boss' brother sent me an email asking me to work on some giant spreadsheet for him. which is fine, except everytime he uses my name in an email, he spells it wrong! i have been working her going on 6 years! and he still can't spell my name right...
i am feeling a bit sarcastic today, so i responded to him asking who this person was?! he doesn't like being corrected so i am sure this will really piss him off! oh well, the way he treats people he really does deserve it!

what were they thinking?!

as i have stated in the past, i don't really like my job. aside from having some of the dumbest coworkers in existence, i also feel that at times my company isn't always heading in the right direction. some of that changed a year ago when we were purchased by a very large, very, very, very large corporation. you know the type, where you are no longer a person with a name, just another drone assigned a number...yeah that kind of company. in ways there have been great things to come from this, like 4 weeks of paid vacation a year! really who can complain about that?! most of the changes really didn't impact my work at all.

but now i am getting off the topic. so anyway, this year we were given our first official review. in the past couple of years (i have been with this company for going on 6 years!), we had half attempts at reviews. most years we didn't really even have a review. so really you always figured, if you still had a job, that you must be doing something right! i did have a review about two years ago and it was awesome! everybody loved me! there was not even ONE complaint about my work. it was really an ego boaster.

so imgine my surprise this year when our anual reviews roll around and i am an N. yes the dreaded N. my company does their reviews on an E, M, N scale. E = Exceeds, M = Meets and N = Needs (as in Needs Improvement!) what?! at first i was shocked...then i was pissed, then i was upset. it was an entire month or so of these type of emotions. i couldn't believe that i was that bad of a worker. and to top it off, there wasn't any really bad part about my review. all of the parts that i could be graded on were good, actually i received an E in most of them, or a high M....so how the hell was i an N?!

this was a question that would never be answered for me. i refused to sign my review, an act which received immediate attention from an HR rep. so there were all these meetings about me, none of which i was invited to (the only way i knew about them was by reading my supervisors calendar -- i am not sure if we are to do this or not...but i did!). anyway, so there were meetings about me, blah, blah, blah...and finally about two months after my review they came to the decision...i truly was an N! they changed my review to reflect my poor performance...this was almost worse then first receiving the N. it was such a let down...i left early that day and took the next day off. my dimwitted supervisor thought i was having some kind of allergy attack...seriously she really thought that! she had no idea how upset i was. she is no longer my supervisor......need i say more?!

so in light of all of this, my next bit o' news will come as a bit of a shocked, as it did to me this morning.
first of all, i was in a crappy, tired mood this morning, so i am dressed in trackies today! i have capri work out pants on, a work out tee shirt and a fleece. yep i look like i have spent the day at the gym! great look for work i know, but when you don't have a dress code, somedays it can be hard to find motivation to look nice.

anyway, i get into the office this morning, and i have a meeting invite from the big boss. it was for my entire team...she wanted a status update on our latest release project. okay no worries, this i can handle. the meeting went fine, no big issues. after we finished that business she went on to talk about our next big release. we (the company) for our next release are going to have our biggest client to date...it is a huge project and a lot of work! (you can probably see where i am going with this...) she assigned me to the project! what?! i didn't even know what to say. i sat there in the back of the conference room stunned, and since i know i can't mask my emotions, it had to have been pretty obvious to everyone how shocked i was! anyway, i have been assigned as the lead in my departmen for our biggest project...really what were they thinking?!

i am not sure at this point whether or not to be excited. 'grande' says i should be excited and that this is a good thing...but i still feel a bit aprehensive about rushing out to celebrate...
who knows!?

things that are pissing me off today...

1) i can't for whatever reason get an imagine to upload on this site from work today
2) work, just in general nothing specific
3) stupid co-workers wielding once again too much power for their tiny little brains
4) slow moving pickup trucks filled with rusted old junk driving about 45 mph in the passing lane during morning rush hour
5) getting anxiety attacks walking in the front doors of the office building (yeah this one wasn't fun, cause at the same time i was fighting the urge to run screaming from the building...)
6) people who chew loudly at their desks (not sure what she is eating, but cows are quieter!)
7) loud and annoying bosses brother, who has his pc speaker setting on high, so every beep and noise it makes i hear at my desk, constantly
8) co-workers who incourage stupid co-workers into believing they are smart
9) coming back from vacation to all of this fun
10) having to work (okay really i don't mind work, just working here i mind)

Last post before vacation...sniff, sniff...

I was hoping to put a picture with this, but the image was taking too long to upload...
Anyway, this is my last post, I leave tomorrow morning, bright and early for Prague, of course with the traveling time and the time change, I won't arrive there until early morning on Friday, so tomorrow is going to be a long day.
I will hopefully be blogging again on Friday the 12th of May, that is if I survive the time change!

See you all in a week!!
- C

just a quick post for today...

there should be a rule against being super busy at work the day before you leave on vacation. the last thing i want to worry about is giving updates to corporate heads today! but my count down has come to a close, tomorrow i leave for prague...i just have to make it through the rest of the work day.

on a funnier note, one of my nazi co-workers was complaining about a conversation she was having via email with some one from a non-english speaking country, she announced out loud to all of us this priceless sentence, "i hate dealing with people who don't speak good english".
need i say more?! ;-)

2 posts in 1 day...

okay just a quick complaint about my cube neighbor...

who the hell says, 'i am having reheats for dinner'...it is leftovers!! leftovers, not reheats! maybe i am just super irritable today, but her cute little made up words drive me up the wall somedays...

there are times where i have those daydream hallucinations of throwing my stapler over the cube wall and knocking her unconcious...this is probably wrong and if shared with wrong person would probably land me in anger management, but really there are days she deserves it.

reheats! arugh...what is wrong with her?!

Two days to go!!!

Woo-freaking-hoo! Two days until I leave for Prague. Tomorrow is my last day at work and it can't come soon enough. The mental midgets (thank you grande for that one) I work with are really getting on my nerves so far this week...I can't wait to be on vacation and free of them for a week and two days.

My plane leaves on Thursday morning, so tomorrow will be my last post for a bit of time. I still of course need to pack and get everything organized before leaving, oh and I have some school work to finish up, and I have to give a presentation at work tomorrow afternoon to a bunch of people on a conference call, arugh, going on vacation is exciting, but all of this crap before hand is just stressing me out. At least I will have a week to not worry about anything.

Yeah...can't wait!! :-)

Happy May Day!!

The inner pagan in me can't but help celebrate certain pagan holidays, Beltane or May Day is one of them. A day when people would gather around and dance around the Maypole. Today was a day in pagan cultures of fertility.

Now of course no one really other than Wiccans (or Druids!) celebrate May Day any more...thanks to christianity. Of course most of the main christian holidays are on or pretty darn close to pagan holidays...coincidence?!

Here are a list of some pagan holidays, pay attention to the dates, they probably will seem pretty familiar...
Yule - the winter solstice, falls around the end of December
Samhain - October 31
Ostara - Spring Equinox, mid March

Yep they sound pretty familiar!

So any way, Happy Beltane!!
So embrace your inner pagan and dance around a Maypole!! :-)