:: Venting Insanity ::

:: Wednesday, July 23, 2003 ::

slow progress
Well, I'm slowly getting more things to do. It only seems to happen when I ask them about stuff. Otherwise, they almost seem perfectly content not to give me anything to do. It's a bit frustrating, actually.

I offered my help to the IT guy, Patrick. He's a regular assembler at the plant that happens to know computer stuff, so he took that on in addition to the rest of his job description. Since he may have other things going on, I figured he could use the help if he's busy.

I also told Ken (my boss) that I have HTML knowledge. While I know I won't nearly have as much office time in the future as I would need to do a full overhaul of any websites, I will have the time to play around a bit with the existing one (add information, new products, news releases, etc). I told him that it would probably save him money instead of paying the contractor every time they need something done.

Today, I was upgraded to the fax lady. Now I handle sending leads out to our reselling agents. I'm also still learning how to decifer the handwriting of the guys in the back. It's an interesting lesson in hieroglyphics.

some family advice
My cousin (Tom/Greg... he goes by both names, but Greg is mostly just family) and I spoke for a long time today during lunch. He was giving me some advice on how to handle things if Ken got too crazy. Apparently, he really works the front girls. Just yesterday, Charity was in with Ken crying about something he'd done to piss her off. He finally came to her about it, and she told Diane, Kathy, and I that she just spilled her mind about how she felt.

Ken's trying too hard, I think. He wants to be his employees' friend, but, at the same time, has this whole I'm-the-boss complex. It's kind of hard to tell what mood he's in, too. And there's a lot going on behind his back. Everyone talks in hushed voices half the time, and we're always looking over our shoulders when we start chatting about things, even if they're not work related.

second thoughts
Had I known it was going to be this disconcerting, I probably wouldn't have taken the job in the first place. Of course, now that I'm in, I'm leary about leaving because I don't know when I'll be able to get something else. So, I'll stay as long as I need to (or can handle it... depending on what comes first). Tom even said it was no big deal if I left. He's only been there a couple years himself. And he doesn't have any long term plans about staying, it seems.

Not that he doesn't like the work. He enjoys what he does and the people he works with directly. It just seems that upper management (namely, Ken and Casey) makes it difficult.

hosting fun
I have to find some good Delta Force maps. I started hosting Task Force Dagger last night. I think it's working pretty well. I even had a visitor. Unfortunately, things got screwed up because of crappy weather knocking our power on and off, but, once the power was steady, the game ran fine.

snapple "real fact" # 172
The eye makes movements 50 times every second.

(finally got a couple of Snapples again so I can start putting the caps I get up again...)