A Day of Weird Observations and Reflections...

Today was another day of observation and thinking at work. I'm not sure I'm observing the most useful things to my actual job or even thinking about the right things but they definitely kept my brain alert.

Today, I noticed that the hookah was still in the kitchen. I'm still not sure why. Someone finally moved it to a cupboard. Nobody has really explained why we now have a hookah in the cupboard but everyone's got something weird in a cupboard, I suppose.

It also occurred to me while I was in the Most Optimistic Bathroom in the World that it's actually quite weird to have the bathroom be optimistic, isn't it? I suppose it's a nice, private sort of place but it's not always that cheerful, is it? First thing in the morning it's ok but as the day goes by, it's not terribly aromatic or clean.

Still, our bathroom continues to tell us to have "Faith, Hope and Love," and to "Live." Also, "Live for Today because your life is NOW!". Sometimes, I'd like to replace "Now" with "Tomorrow," just to see what people would say but then that wouldn't be very optimistic, would it?

The bathroom manages to fascinate me though. Although, I'd like to state that I don't spend all day hanging around in the bathroom. That would make me Creepy Stalker Monkeypants and while a little twisted (in, hopefully, a good way), I don't strive for creepy.

I also had a rather long meeting this afternoon. It was one of those departmental ones where we have to go around the room and tell everyone what we've been working on. I can't speak for anyone else in my department but it's all a bit boring. I mean, it's ok if you find that sort of thing interesting but because we all, you know, work together, we tend to know what each other is working on if it's something we need to know about. I suppose it's a good that we get to keep track of one another but we all work in cubicles that are either next to/behind or in front of one another. It's not a big mystery.

However, we meet bi-weekly anyway. I try to listen but often find myself either doing strange doodles (although no more Strawberries of DOOOOM! lately). Often, I think about food. Today, I managed to come up with nine levels of Hell for my character from The Reluctant Demon. That was good. It's nice to have a productive meeting.

I also observed that a coworker was wearing a t-shirt that had a high school team called "The Tomahawks". I found that fascinating. It's an interesting name for a team. I suppose it's more politically correct than the "Indians". But…isn't the tomahawk a weapon? Isn't it the native American version of something like our shotgun? You don't see teams called the "Bergville Shotguns," or the Plainview "Axes" or anything, do you? The Tomahawks is just a weird name.

I also observed that someone's watch was making a shiny spot on the ceiling. I had a catlike urge to swat at it which is an odd thing to think considering I'm not a cat person. I like kittens but I found cats not to my taste. They're ok if they're someone else's cat but I find them to be hairball making creatures of extreme selfishness.

This, of course, led me to think about my puppies. Lately, Rory has been more finicky with her treats. She used to eat everything. Now, she's turning her nose up at the Boots and Barkley Target brand treats in favour of the Cesar dog treats.

I hate the Cesar dog. I can't explain why. It's a big headed West Highland Terrier. My dislike for the Cesar dog is a little odd since I have nothing against other West Highland Terriers. I find them quite cute. I just have this rather unpleasant urge to punch the Cesar dog in the head.

This sounds rather violent, I know. I'm not, by nature, a very violent creature. Most of my violence is imaginary and is fictional. I would never really punch a dog. For one thing, I imagine it's quite hard to actually punch a dog. Secondly, I like dogs and wouldn't ever want to hurt one. There's just something about that Cesar dog.

Then I began to ponder the evening walk I take with the puppies. I've figured out if we go out by about 5:15 p.m., we can avoid Larry the Potential Serial Killer who appears to not get home from work until right before 6 p.m.

At some points during the meeting, I did listen to what people were saying but most of the time it sounded like "blah blah boring product that isn't as interesting as the people who work on it think it is blah" or "blah blah database characters, blah"

I also had to fight off a case of case of Song-Stuck-In-My-Head. In this case, it was Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance". It made me want to sing out loud. It's not the type of song you want to sing out loud in a department meeting. Or, actually, it is but you know if you do, you'll be in some hot water. Or…people might be amused. Either way, I fought the urge.

I'm finding it disturbing that my musical tastes have suddenly and inexplicably evolved towards pop. I still like Green Day just not as much. I've become much more open to other music. I suppose that's not bad per se but it's just..different.

By the time the meeting was done, I was quite hungry and glad for the meeting to be done. My feet were cold and I wanted to get back to my desk because I was starting to get drowsy. This usually manifests as an extreme case of the yawns which becomes contagious. I know when I've got at least the people on either side of me yawning that I probably should try to cut back.

All in all, it was a very productive day as far as thinking goes…maybe not so much as work goes. But, at the moment things are pretty quiet in the office and I have to keep things interesting, somehow.

Especially when I have meetings.

Happy Friday and have a great weekend!

The Revenge of Mondays

I think I've said I don't like Mondays once too often. Mondays are getting their own back.

Today was...very Monday. It started out with my worrying: Sookie had been feeling sick yesterday and hadn't been acting at all like herself. She was off her food, very lethargic and generally not at all Sookie-Sue like. I thought she'd be ok this morning but she was still very mopey and wouldn't eat so I felt a little worried when I went off to work.

Of course, then I decided to do some internet research to make sure she was ok. I knew one of the Dog Whisperer's beasts had Parvo not too long ago. Parvo is a very nasty dog infection that's highly contagious and, apparently, unless you bleach everything the dog comes into contact with, it's very hard to kill.

So, I did some reading and discovered that Sookie's symptoms resembled those of the early stages of Parvo. I panicked. I made an appointment at the vet for the end of the day and proceeded to worry until I went home for lunch.

At lunch time, Sookie seemed somewhat normal. She ate a little, played a little and seemed mostly back to herself. Feeling like a very overprotective pet parent, I decided to cancel the vet appointment and just watch her to see how she acted.

I went back to work feeling better. Well, except for the fact that our President had scheduled yet another one of his infamous "impromptu staff meetings."

These, as I've mentioned before, are usually scheduled for the entire staff with less than 24 hours notice. This one starts at 8:30 a.m. tomorrow. In our company, these 'invitations' to the meetings are greeted with much dread and paranoia. I've mentioned this. It stems from the fact that these meetings a) Never, ever provide good news, b) follow several closed-door conversations between my boss- the V.P of the company and his boss- the president of the company and c) are sprung on us with little warning and little reassurance.

As I've mentioned, these staff meetings usually bring bad news such as:

• We're being sold, we're being sold and it's likely that we'll be closed.
• We're being sold and though we won't close, we might lose our jobs.
• We won't lose our jobs but we have to change our attitudes and start making money.
• We're not making enough money and we need to make more
• We are making some money but we're merging with another company and it's possible we might lose our jobs.

So, you can see...these meeting invitations are met with paranoia. What amused me is less than 3 minutes after getting the emailed invitation, I had three simultaneous instant messages from coworkers, all with the same.. "Oh No" in them.

I tried not to be paranoid even though I was informed that I'd missed the fact that our company president had just met with our boss in a very, very quiet meeting with the door closed. Normally, when those two talk, even with the door closed, you can hear the sound of voices even though you can never hear what they're saying. Trust me, my coworker and I have tried to hear and it's impossible. This one was so quiet, my coworker wondered if they were miming.

This, of course, inspired an inappropriate fit of giggles from me as I immediately pictured our president dressed as Marcel Marceau and doing that creepy box thing that mimes do. On the plus side, this made me feel much better. On the down side, since it won't actually happen, no one will understand why the words mime and our president's name will always inspire a loony grinning fit from me unless I explain. And, even when I try to, they will still look at me like I'm crazy.

I digress. To top things off, our boss ended up rescheduling our department meeting until after this staff meeting. He only does that when he 1) either is afraid that we'll ask questions about why we're having a staff meeting or 2) Needs to discuss the meeting with us after it's happened.

Either way, it doesn't bode well. My only hope is that if they're going to schedule a meeting at 8:30 a.m., there better be awkward bagels.

So, on top of my dog feeling poorly and the paranoia that Something Bad is going to happen, I also managed to accidentally delete some rather important information. In my defense, I feel like I was doing my job. My boss and the poor programmer who is responsible for the information don't really agree.

You see, I've recently taken on the responsibility of trying to test our software for vulnerabilities. While I'll never be a hacker because I'm simply not smart enough, I use certain hacker tools to help search for them. Hacking isn't all bad. Bad hacking is called Black Hat hacking. Good hacking is White Hat hacking. The point of White Hat hacking is to try to make sure it's safe against the Black Hats. I'm learning everything as I go along but am having a lot of fun doing it. I've found some nifty tools. One of these tools checks websites for vulnerabilities. Except today, one of my tests apparently deleted some information. I was chastised because I logged in and a real hacker wouldn't have that access. I tried to politely explain to my boss that just because we didn't create accounts for hackers to do bad things to our software, they're usually pretty adept at finding their way in. This is simplified by us by using some not so hard-to-crack encryption for passwords. They couldn't see that I'd helped them out by finding something a hacker could find in less than five minutes. They only saw the damage I'd done.

Fortunately, it's fixable. Unfortunately, I'm in the dog house. I should probably feel bad but I really don't except for the fact that the repairs have to be done by someone who is rather busy and doesn't have time to fix my damage.

Finally, to top it all off, I end up getting scheduled for meetings all afternoon. I dislike meetings. I especially dislike them when I think I'm invited because someone finally realizes I should have been invited all along because I have the same responsibilities as my coworker who is always invited only to discover I'm only invited because she's going to be out of the office on a day when she needs to be there. I wouldn't mind except she really doesn't need to be out of the office. As usual, her and one of her clique have contrived to make it seem like she has to go to this crucial meeting when, really, she has very little to do with the meeting; she just wants to go hang out and support her friend. It would be ok if she didn't have, you know, responsibilities in the office that day, responsibilities that she made sure she made sure she had and I didn't. Yes, I'm bitter. If it wasn't such a regular thing, I wouldn't mind so much.

Ah well, there's no point worrying about it. Life will go on. So will the meetings. They go on. And on. And on. I ended up being rather late home which made it fortunate I'd cancelled the vet appointment.

Sookie seems to be feeling sorry for herself again. I don't know if it's to milk attention or she really does feel under the weather. I think I'll spend the evening keeping an eye on her, just to make sure. Maybe it'll stop me thinking about the meeting tomorrow which, hopefully, will be much ado about nothing.

And, if it is much ado about something...I'll just picture it with mimes.

Happy Tuesday.