June 20, 2002 - Vol. 5 - Issue 2

You know, history is absolutely amazing. I'd like to know the guy who said: "Those who fail to study history are doomed to repeat the past's mistakes." So that may not be the correct quote, but you get the idea. I have determined that all the studying in the world will amount to nothing. As a race, scratch that, as a species, we are most certainly doomed to extinction at our own hand. Why? Well this could be a long philosophical discussion with many viewpoints, but I will show one example and how that I interacted with it. The example? "Road Rage."

Road Rage by Webster's definition: "Violent behavior exhibited by drivers in traffic, often as a manifestation of stress." See, it's even in the dictionary. The auto is a wonderful invention (please bear with me on this - I'm using an allegory here) and we use it everyday in some form or another. The way it has effected our life is incredible and yet very sad. For as many examples of how the auto is a lifesaver you can find almost as many that show how the auto has taken lives. I was a first time witness to road rage yesterday and it shocked me to my core because I found so hard to believe. Don't get me wrong, I've flipped the bird or muttered under my breath when someone has cut me off, not yielded the right of way or offended my driving skills in some fashion. Oh yeah, would I love to have a set of twin .50 cals mounted on the top of the car. Cut me off? Take that! BUUUURRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRPPPPPP! No more trunk, rear wheels and back seat for you! Ok, so it's fun to imagine, but what if I really did have that? Would I use it? Nah, but what about if they were PAINTBALL GUNS!! OH YEAH!! SSSSPPPPPPLLLLAAAAAAAAAAAAATTT! Followed by them dying in a fiery car accident because you scared the shit out of them, which caused them to swerve into the path of an oncoming tractor-trailer.... ooops.

Back to the matter at hand. As me and wife are headed to see the realtor, Mr. Tricked-Out Ford Bronco pulls out of somewhere cutting off Mr. Shiny Black Chevy S-10. Mr. S-10 takes offense to this by honking, screaming and making some very lewd gestures. Mr. Bronco retorts by offering a lewd hand gesture of his own and reducing his speed to a casual "I'm touring the area" speed of 5 miles an hour. Mr. S-10 has obviously been pushed to his limit. He passes Mr. Bronco on the right side (on the shoulder) at high rate of speed and cuts him off (blocking ALL traffic behind him). After cutting him off, Mr. S-10 stops his truck and climbs out, and by his speech, dress, and ethnicity has proven him to be named Mr. Gino and based on what we've seen of Mr. Bronco, his name should be Mr. LeRoy. (Yeah I know I'm racially profiling, but like I said we're doomed anyways.) So Mr. Gino is pretty enraged at this point and is taunting Mr. LeRoy to get out of his truck. When he refused to do so, Mr. Gino approached Mr. LeRoy and called him, and I quote, "FUCKING NIGGER" and then spit on him. At that point Mrs. Gino got out of the truck and told him to get back in, which he did, but not before taunting and hollering some more. Mr. Gino then spun his tires throwing gravel all over Mr. LeRoy in his tricked-out Bronco.

At this point Mr. LeRoy seemed to take offense and pulled over to the shoulder as if trying to decide whether or not he could whip Mr. Gino or perhaps it was to wipe the saliva off.. As traffic began to move again, I too, pulled over on the side of the road, discussing with the wife if maybe would should take down plate numbers and call the police. I had witnessed an obvious assault, but I was unsure of what would happen if a bystander should enter the fray or offer assistance. After a minute, my self-preservation kicked in and since Mr. LeRoy wasn't moving I figured he wasn't going to do anything and we went on our way.

It wasn't until later as I was reflecting on that incident that came to my epiphany. Mr. Gino was so mad that rather then call him anything else, he chose to slander him based solely on his skin color. All over an impolite vehicular maneuver and some accompanying hand gestures. Nothing was said about anything personal, it was simply because Mr. Gino did not like the treatment he got from another driver. (On a side bet, I think that Ms. Gina in the truck with him, may have contributed to his overall mood). Don't get me wrong, I've heard "Nigger" used quite a bit in my rather short life, but for some reason it struck me differently then any other time that I have heard in music, movies, TV, etc., etc.. Maybe it's because I would never, ever do something like that. I don't know, I'm still puzzling this one out.

This brings me to my doomed point. We are done for, at least until someone can show me something that proves different. Am I being a bit cynical? Yep. For all the good that is done, there is always a little bad. This was my spot of bad and I think it may have scarred me just a smidge. Nothing major, nothing even noticeable, but enough that I can only wonder about the actions of one individual on a planet with 3.5+ billion people who interact in some fashion every day. I will hold out hope that we are not alone in the universe because it will be a really quite place until someone or something happens along to fill the void.

I’m done for today. If you can, Consider yourself "Bitched at."

You asked and now you shall recieve.

I did it. I put a link to here on my main web page. Now the two are inexorably linked in a freakish twist of fate. Yeah you can say it, I'm a few sandwiches short of a picnic but at least it's fun to watch me write what the voices in my head tell me to.

Apparently another of my personal heroes has bitten the dust. Stone Cold Steve Austin of WWE is in trouble for spousal abuse ( http://www.badjocks.com ). What is the world coming too. Give me as much money as these fuckers have and I'll be the biggest humanitarian in the world. Well, not in the world, but I certainly do my share right here! Cripes!

Done.

Alright then!

I've only gotten a couple of answers to my Post - No Post the BLOG question. I'm going to assume since enough people think it's a good idea, then it must be? Right? So that will have it's own link very soon. Oh yeah, a new Daily Bitch is up. I'm going to try and put out one on Mondays and Thursdays. The blog will be my mini catch-all for ideas that I have.

Thursday's DB deals with change. So far it looks like Monday will be the topic of "Friends, Lovers, Co-workers, and the other Lazy, Evil Shits who you have to deal with in Life" which is inspired by true events in my own life! I know...it's hard to believe, but it will all be true. Trust me.

Later gator!

June 12, 2002 - Vol. 5 - Issue 1

First of all, I know that I have been away for a little bit and it's been a little while since I had a good "Bitch session." There are reasons, like I've been busy with my life, etc., etc., but you could care less. Even though my life has been going fairly smoothly, events have transpired that have convinced me that now, more then ever, I need to keep this updated, if nothing else then for my own sanity. Oh yeah, thanks to those that read my BLOG while I was away, it was your feedback that convinced me of what I had to do. So as I had said, there have been "changes" in my life and that's what today is all about.

Change can be a good thing and it can be a bad thing. Like changing your undies everyday. That's a good thing because no one want to smell them suckers after you been wearing them a few days and the funk starts emanating from them. Changing your clothes is a good thing too, unless you have poor fashion taste, then it's one nightmare after another for the people around you. Changing your significant other can be a good thing AND a bad thing. Learning all the "stuff" from your new partner can be really fun, but at the same time, the old baggage from your last partner can tend to hang around like the funk from those britches you been wearing for the last 4 days.

At the company I work for, we have gone through a BIG change. We were "outsourced" to a smaller company. Now even though we all still sit at the same desk, have the same phone, and do the same job, we have new bosses, a new name on the paycheck, and suck-ass health benefits. How could this happen? Well, first of all they (original company) tried to keep us in the dark by not communicating anything to us. Only by some industrious digging on the web and reading between the lines were they FORCED to admit what was going to happen. So finally, after the shit was spread really thick, did we finally get to wipe off and take a look at the plans. Can you freaking believe it? It was almost a total coup-detat, we were able to get the BIG GUYS to show us. We were kept in the dark intentionally for so long I started the Mushroom Revolution.

I guess that some changes can be good, but this particular change was a virtual 24/7 rumor generator. Everyday we would hear something that was the contrary to what we had heard the day before. Then without much ado at all, it happened. The Announcement. Now it was official, there was a change going to happen whether we liked it or not. See this is what I trying to figure out. How a change that you cannot control can piss you off and make you a really FUCKING BITTER! See, it's almost like being told you are going to die. You have those same types of stages of acceptance:

1. DENIAL. "What? No freakin' way this is going to happen. They can't do this to us! If we do this we don't have the layoffs again? Yeah right, Kiss my ass!"
2. ANGER. "YOU BASTARDS! This is my repayment for years of loyalty? Kiss my ass, you greedy corporate shits!"
3. BARGAINING. "Well, it is a smaller company. We'll have more room to move to different positions. Did someone say we'll get to do hardware support?"
4. DEPRESSION. "Oh man, did you see their health benefits? These suck. A new badge? Aww, now I'm a sub-contractor? That's like shit under the lowest pond scum."
5. ACCEPTANCE. "Oh well, at least I have a job."

Yep, that's exactly what I'm talking about. Me? I think I'm swinging back and forth on all of them and have yet to settle into the acceptance phase because I'm pissed about it. All I want is some answers to some really easy questions. Like why? or maybe my favorite: "Can I see the money math for this transition?" I mean, call me crazy if you want, but you have to want to know the whole what, why, when, where, and how of this situation. Or maybe just I do. I just want to walk up to the person in charge and kick him in the nuts for trying to keep us in the dark. What would that accomplish? Not much, just a little satisfaction of how it feels to have your loyalty tossed back in your face.

I thought I knew how funny Dilbert was at my last position, now it's so true it's tough to find the humor, but given my sense of humor and twisted nature, I'll find it. Besides, it's only a matter of time before the new bosses find out who I am.

I’m done for today. Consider yourself "Bitched at."

Hey...go check out my web page!! I've been working hard to get some good stuff up there! http://www.dailybitch.com

On a separate note, I can't decide if I should make a link to this here blog off my website. So I'll be democratic about it and put it up to a popular vote. E-mail with your nay or yay and go from there.

I'm out!

Ok, let's see if I remember how to type.... FUCK...yep that still works. Good let's begin.

Today is my first real day back at work and I'm finishing up the rebuild of my machine (THANKS MR. JOE), and I make the mistake of doing a favor. Come to find out what I thought would be a 20 minute ticket has quickly turned into a 3 hour job. Piece of shit machine! I finally got it back on the domain after checking through the bindings! Who in the world would check the bindings, but apparently Mr. customer decided to get a wireless network going at home and the freaking Linksys software changed the bindings. Then he wonders how come he can't get mail. HEY SHIT FOR BRAINS! IT'S A WORK MACHINE, IT AIN'T ONE OF YOUR PLAYTOYS FOR HOME!!! Oh well.

I've been very depressed(?), disallusioned(?), morose(?) about this job lately. Call me crazy, but most of all I feel like I got the "high hard one" for all the work I did down at the the "other place." No thanks from anyone at Ed's house, no calls, nothing. I get that feelings I just wasted my time. Of couse from my 'mates here, I got lot's of "Hi, Howdies, and glad-to-have-you-backs," but nothing else from the authorities. Quit? Sounds like a grand idea, but then what will I do. Nah, rather hang around here and wait to see if DeJuan get some action going.

This machine is now done, time to go harass the customer some more!

Later!

Today is the the magic day! Last day of the TDY blog!

That's right, today I go home, back to the wife and kid, back to the big "X", back to lead (or wander aimlessly) the mushroom revolution. It's 10:39 now and only about another 20 minutes before we get "walked" out. First we have to fill out the paperwork that cancels our account and promises we won't discuss anything we saw (oops too late for that), etc. etc. We all know how that works.

The guys here got together and gave us some cake and I got a real nice card with comments inside. Everyone has told us how much they will miss us and how good of a co-worker I was. I feel almost kind of misty, but then I realize that I'm going HOME where I have co-workers that are missing me (at least I think they are). I set up the permanent out of office rule and I'm about to re-clone my machine to erase any incriminating evidence. I do have to admit, that I will miss working closely with the other TDY people, especially Ms Pat, Mr Tom, and Mr Fred. We had some fun times busting each other's chops, but now the only ones left here with be Ms Pat & Mr Fred. They are posted here until the middle of July. You folks might not know that Ms Pat has contributed quite a few documents to Ed's Place at the X, and it has been fun watching her chase these guys around trying to get them to sit down and walk through what they do so she can write it all down.

Of course I took lots of pictures yesterday and today, so you can see who all the people are, and while I'm on vacation I'll be re-vamping the Daily Bitch Homepage and posting all these fine pics.

Well it's time to roll! Signing off from Rockville, Maryland! No, don't worry, the blog will continue, because I sure that DeJuan is going to give me lots and lots to blog about. Thanks for tuning in, see you in a week!!

Well I got a call yesterday and I thought I would discuss it today.

Hmmm, I guess first I should say, that everyone has their day in the sun, and along that same lines, when you mess up you get in the blog! So today, the semi-annual "That's why you don't touch people stuff" award goes to Mr. Joe. Along with this award comes the "You did what to my hard drive?" technology prize. I don't want to beat on Mr Joe too much, but he definately deserves it. I'm sure he'll want to split the honor with Mr. John for telling me. Oh well it happens. At least Mr John salvaged a lot of my personal data. That's nice, good thing (because I had the wierdest thought I would have to "sanitize" my machine when we moved into DeJuan's house) I backed up my data (the important stuff) to 2 CDs before I left. Hopefully (hint, hint) all my hardware will be back to normal when I get back AFTER my vacation. Here I thought I was just going to come in on Friday and offload all my data from the laptop. Talk about taking a productivity drop!

Had a little meeting with Ms. Helen this morning to discuss a document that I had wrote. She seemed very interested, it's too bad I was only able to get about 20 minutes of her time. Felt a bit short-changed and really couldn't explain myself. I think I'm really going to miss most of the people here, especially the folks I've worked really close with.

For those keeping track...still no Amex card delivered to my house. Too bad Ms Sue told me not to call AMEX so I can't talk (harass) them about where the card is.

Oh well....

I know... I know... The text is scroooollllliiinnng across the screen. That is because of my May 16th blog. I made the mistake of scrolling a single word across the screen. Now, I can't go back and edit it, all of the rest of them I can, but for some reason the software is not letting me do that.

Soooo... The workaround for this is to look over on the left and use the ARCHIVE link for this week. The settings are to show the last 7 days of blogs so this will be hosed for another couple of days. Then is should straighten itself out (I hope).

I'm also trying to get the text a smidge bigger.

Picky, picky. But if everyone is reading it, then I guess I should be happy!

Ok, looks like someone had a bad server day! The blog is back....so lets chat...

Now, does everyone know what Tourette Syndrome is? According to a medical journal it is this: Tourette syndrome (TS) is an inherited, neurological disorder characterized by repeated involuntary movements and uncontrollable vocal (phonic) sounds called tics. In a few cases, such tics can include inappropriate words and phrases. The disorder is named for Dr. Georges Gilles de la Tourette, the pioneering French neurologist who first described an 86-year-old French noblewoman with the condition in 1885.

But this is the part we are interested in.....TS patients may utter strange and unacceptable sounds, words, or phrases. It is not uncommon for a person with TS to continuously clear his or her throat, cough, sniff, grunt, yelp, bark, or shout.

Did you see that part about throat clearing? I bring attention to this for 1 simple reason: MR. "YOU KNOW WHO" OBVIOUSLY HAS THIS!!! See, I noticed from the first day I worked with him. It wasn't so bad, until Mr. Scot (one of the "guys" here) asked him if that was his car starting impression. So today after almost 40 days of this noise, I did a little experiment. I put up a piece of paper and everytime he grunted, I put up a tick mark. Guess what? Since 7:45am this morning, he has done it 53 times. Yeah...that's 53 as in halfway to a hundred!! AND THAT'S ONLY THE ONES I NOTICED!!

Yep, it's bugging the shit out of me. Now it's a joke. I've even discussed it with Mr. Tom & Ms. Pat, you know, debating on how to count them. See sometimes he does it twice, with a brief pause between 1 & 2. Now is that just one or should it count as two. That is the length of our debate. Kind of weak ain't it.

Nothing much happening here. Took Mr. Steve out to lunch to thank him for being a good guy (he was the mgr we reported to while here). Besides that, only 2 days left. I brought the camera this week, so you will be able to see all of these people out on the Daily Bitch Homepage. If anything else happens, I'll pop it in.

Who's my bitch?

Hey...where's my blog? It is missing?

test blog

Monday morning Haiku:

My teeth are nashing,
Amex card not in mail, shit!
No charge for Artie!

Yep. That's right, nothing in the mail even though the lady on the phone said Friday delivery. I wonder if I can call and get a reference or tracking number. Then again, I have been told by my manager-who-prefers-not-to-be-named-in-my-blog that his manager told me I'm not supposed to be calling Amex.

Bummer, Thanks DeJuan! BTW, I did get the official "ask" to go to Canuck-Land to help Ed's setup company do some renovations. Yeah right. Not even if you gave me the freakin' card and a large suitcase of money. Anyone who volunteers for one of these "missions" should come and see me. I'll be more then happy to give you the number to my therapist. She seems pretty nice, but she keeps telling me I might have issues that she won't be able to help me with.

Can you say Prozac? Last week - 4 days, 3 nights left. Thank God!

It's Sunday!!

I goofed up and now I'm afraid. See I said I was going over to help a buddy do some painting but I ran into a small snag. Actually two large ones and a small one. See, Saturday I was going to help paint, but Friday night, my brother Scot calls and says his girlfriend / mother of his child (there's more but we'll save that for the DB) is missing us and we haven't seen the new baby since it was born and could they come up? Sure, my wife says, but she has forgotten that she is going to be in class all day Saturday and I'll be doing the entertaining. I tried to broach the subject of leaving them alone for a couple of hours, but then we got into that "how do we lock the house AND what if you're not back and we need to get in" conversation.

Long story short, I didn't go. I kept meaning to call, but by the time I found the number it was 2 hours later then when I had planned to go over. So now I feel like a total shithead. Especially since I was trying to talk my fellow co-workers into going with me. Something tells me I really have a ration comeing my way for this little action, or should I say in-action.

Once again, I'm a dork.

Woooo Hooooo! It was a "welcome" day of sorts!

Now mind you I don't feel that DeJuan gave me a proper "Howdy," but what the hell, it leasts it something. I could have done without his "checkbook" information though. Reading that didn't leave me with a warm fuzzy at all! I guess I'll be letting go of that dead horse, which is a good thing, cause it was getting kind smelly being 17 days old and all.

I've got a little more to say, but I believe it is also "Daily Bitch" material. I heard something on a phone call yesterday. It leads me down a wandering path about personalities. You know, whose got them, who don't, whose bugs you, and possibly, how much your's bug them (GASP!). Is it possble that someone doesn't like you? More about that at another time and another place.

So it's time for me to do the airport thing. Only 2 more flights after this one. Only 4 more days of being away. Only a little more of this situation with expense reports and Amex cards. Will the blog close? Will it end? Nahhh, there will always be something small bugging me and since this has been mostly dealing about work, maybe I'll keep doing it, even when I get back to the "X" becasue there's always something happening there!

Peace out! Word to yo' Moms!

Gosh, You like me! You really like me!

Of course, maybe I present a little diversion into the boredom we know as our employment. First and foremost, Welcome to day 16, of the "I don't think DeJuan likes me much cause I haven't got a welcome note from him" whine. This is the longest running whine on this board! Of course, it may be the only whine in here, but don't worry because I'll be serving cheese later (insert drum noise here)!

Oh yeah, still no Amex Card - Hypocrite alert! Art spending his own money - not happy! Art spending his own money - not happy! Art spending his own money - not happy! Art spending his own money - not happy! Art spending his own money - not happy! Art spending his own money - not happy! Art spending his own money - not happy! YOU FUCKING ASSHOLES! WHERE'S MY CARD? Art spending his own money - not happy! Art spending his own money - not happy! Art spending his own money - not happy! Art spending his own money - not happy! Art spending his own money - not happy! Art spending his own money - not happy! Art spending his own money - not happy! Art spending his own money - not happy! Art spending his own money - not happy! This alert is not over - just filtered out. I had a bit of an epiphany last night (much to my wife's chagrin - she got to call me ball-less dork because she knew I would go back without the card). Any ways, I was thinking about this whole card thing. I was told to expect it in 8-13 business days maybe sooner. Hmm, okey-dokey, I'll go with that. Now, if I don't get the card in the mail within the next 3 days (thurs, fri, or sat) then I won't need it. I mean if it arrives Monday, why bother having my wife Fedex it to me? It would take a day or two, so I'll end up having it only for one day? So I'll check with Amex myself!

Call #1 (main corporate Card number)...blah blah...Ok Mr Art...you SS# number only shows one card which is cancelled. What you might want to do is call the application number and see what the status is. (that seems like a good idea) Thank you!

Call #2 (application status number)...blah blah...Ok Mr Art...(I explain ENTIRE situation)..hmm, Okay I see what happen. It looks like the application came in at the same time the card was cancelled. This caused the application to be denied (not processed) because it appeared to the "system" that you already have a card and we don't allow people to have to corp cards in the same name. I see what has happened and I'll approve this application right now. It will take a couple of hours to process but it WILL go out today for delivery tomorrow (so I will have it Friday night). We are really sorry about this, but these situations aren't typical....blah ...blah..Have a nice day!

Ahem! This is the part where I go AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Now do I feel better? Nope. Someone is gettin a lump of coal in their stocking this Christmas!

What do I say? Catch you later!

Good day to you!

And then you woke up to the screaming hell that is your life!!! Just kidding, I love my job, no really I do! No wait, get away from me with that needle! I don't want to put on the hug me sweater!

Welcome to day #14 with no "Welcome to my house" from Dejuan. Not that I'm feeling testy or anything, after all, I'm used to the fine mushroom treatment I got from Ed, so why would anything change? My manager (who prefers not to be named in my blog), got an official-type note to confirm a conversation that I had with Mr. Steve. Basically, everyone is all done effective May 31. Niiiicccce! Good thing too! I'm done effective the 23rd and I'm planning on taking some much needed "decompress" time during the week of the 27th. So you folks won't get to see my shiney face until June 3rd.

You know I have to admit, that I'm a bit of a hypocrite. Yeah I know, it's hard to believe, but I went back on my word. See I said that I would come back and stop this whole nonsense if I had to pay out of my pocket, but yet here I am. Ed took his card back, and Dejuan is promising me that his in the mail. What do I do? Quietly acquiece to the whole thing. If Dejuan promised then I'll believe him. Of course I wasn't looking at that other hand that had a tube of KY jelly in it. Needless to say 13 days later and $300 in the hole, here I am. Well at least I have plane fare home, a rental car, and a hotel room. What more could I want? HOW ABOUT THE FUCKING TRUTH ONCE IN A WHILE? HOW ABOUT A COMPANY THAT WON'T BEND YOU OVER LIKE A HORNY SHEEP SHEPARD THEY ARE AND TAKE THE SKINBOAT TO TUNA TOWN???

Okay, that was uncalled for I know. You get the general idea. Maybe you do, maybe you don't. You know what? I don't care. There's a shock right? Speaking of shocks, someone is in for a good one. I wrote by "Lessons Learned" paper today. This is what I'm giving to the managers when I leave. You know how that works, it's everything I observed, my opinions, inefficiencies that could be corrected. Just imagine a politically correct Blog and you have the idea.

Well it's time to get back to the hotel. Later!

Alright! So no post Friday (May 10) since I was building a server AND I left here about 12:30 to go to the airport. Hope everyone had a nice mother's day, especially Ms Gina and my sister-in-law The Liz-ard (as I call her), two of the newest mom's I know!

Now on to the Blog! Had a reletively good flight in, if you don't mind bouncing around the cabin. When we left Roch-cha-cha, it was a bit on the foggy side. The cloud deck was around 150 feet. That was pretty cool watching the planes go "poof" into it. At least until you're on one of those planes. Typical "dick-in-zipper" day the air line though. They had no flight crew (cause they were at the hotel using up their federally regulated sleep time) so they couldn't move the plane up to the gate. Cool, get to go out of the terminal, onto the tarmac (did I mention it was raining?) and wait on the stairs until they finished wheeling Methusalah's grandmother into a seat. Then our 7:40 flight didn't leave the ground until 8:20ish. Just a weee bit behind the schedule. I like a little turbulence, let's you know that you have to have something inherently wrong with you in order to strap into a big silver tube and buzz around the countryside.

Once I got to work, it looked like a good Monday, at least until Mr Lee started cursing. Apparently someone broke his server and you can be sure who is trying to pin it on! Yours truly. What really bothers me, is that I'm hearing it from the other side of the fence. He said some words to Ms. Pat along those lines of idiots screwing up the server, she told him, how could they do that, they you HIS APPROVED documentation. Of course he was not there supervising the whole thing, but come on, this is me. If there was a problem I would have seen it long before he did. It would have cropped up in all the reboots I did. The last time I saw it working correctly HE was working on it. Something smells funny here and it's not my cologne! I feel bad because he's been taking a lot of heat from his fellow co-workers and it may have been me, but I rebooted several times and it worked fine, I almost want to offer my help, but I know that deep in his little red-neck heart he thinks I'm the ignorant fuck responsible for him having to bust a hump to get it working.

Screw it, guilt is for suckers! I did it and I'm glad I did it! You know what? I'll do it again! Well as soon as I figure out what "it" was, I will, mark my words.

Time for dinner - Later!

Hooray! I have something to do! I was talking to Ms. Pat (our tech writer) and was telling her how NOT busy I was and before you could say "can I help you with anything?" I'm proofreading her server build documents. This is great! Not only do I get to review the docs, I get to build servers using the docs (very important) and as an added bonus, my name (might) appear on the docs themselves since I assisted. FINALLY! Something usefull to do! Now onto the really fun part!

See, down here they have two teams, one is deskside and one is Mail/server. Now the deskside get to do some work on the file & print servers, but they have NO rights to the Exchange, BDC, or PDCs. Did I mention that DS cannot even change passwords? Apparently they have NO RIGHTS to the main domain. Oh sure they can add people to the building specific machine domains, much like our ****CR1 (wink, wink), but they have no ability to do anything in the ***MC domain (follow me? I'm using this for an example). See the Mail guys look at the Desktop guys like they are morons and the Desktop guys think the Mail folks are prima donnas!

Now imagine if you can, our chunky little hero arrives on scene with a team of very proficient SAs. Apparently when they create our accounts they add us to the Account Ops group. This allows us to log into the Mail guys special domain. Now in the process of building a BDC, one of the Mail guys who we'll call Mr. Lee, see that I can log in. This immediately confirms his worst fears: A desktop SA has the same rights as him! His panties bunch up and his dick twists up into a knot and he goes crying to his Team lead (I'll go into the infra setup later) and before you can WHAT THE FUCK? I can no longer log into this server. Let me explain why this happened.... See Ms Pat has been working with the teams here to get the docs corrected, created, and generally in order. Well, not everyone is really open to this idea because they have to set aside time for her (see my previous blog about her and the handrails). So Mr Lee is told he has to build these servers as part of this rollout project they (the mail guys) are working on. All of a sudden Ms Pat has a brainstorm and decides to let me and a couple of the desktop guys build the server. Proof positive that the build documents are correct especially if someone who has SOME server experience can do it. Mr Lee is told he has to "supervise" this rather then do it and he freaks and starts babbling on and on about how he is too busy. Next thing you know, Ms. Pat tears the handrails off the back of Mr Lee (mounted their a month earlier for easy access to riding his ass around) and turns them into steel nun-chukas and proceeds to beat his ass down like the whiney little bitch he is. Okay, so what really happened is that when he started whine, Ms Pat said that we (as in him and her) should go over to the appropriate manager's office and discuss it. At that moment he caved and said he would comply. SMACK!! WHO'S MY BITCH NOW??

Now Mr Lee did not take this well at all, you could tell he was fuming, but with no way to get back at her, he struck back at us. Bringing us to where we are today, with your hero in the middle of one really smelly shit storm. Because even if we did have those rights by accident, the PROCESS was not followed to take them away and THAT is the core of this little feces flurry! Now to top it all off, since he pulled my rights, while I was logged in, my profile appears to have corrupted something on the machine, so we have to spend 3 hours rebuilding it so we are sure that nothing is wrong with it. I mean it is a BDC and can't have any mistakes on it, now can we.

Check you later, the wind is blowing in and it don't smell good!!

All right..I'm a day behind! So sue me! It took me that long to recover from the plane ride. The plane ride? Oh yeah!

See a certain admin has been breaking her hump trying to keep up with all the renovations over at ED's house, now that he moved out and DeJuan moved in. So needless to say she had no idea about who to talk to about making travel arrangements. Also, note to all who read this, if DeJuan does anything like his expense reports we are in for a good time. He is a one cheap fucker! (my opinion) So this poor admin who well call "Shelly" works for 3 hours getting just ME travel arrangements for Monday. Since DeJuan decided not to expedite the Amex cards, we can't even book our own travel plan (hotel, air, car). So she finally gets it straight and rather then getting me book on Airtran, DeJuan's folks get me booked on US Air for 3 times the cost of my normal ticket! ON A PROP JOB!

Monday rolls around and I ride a plane (not a jet) for 1.5 hours with a 3rd of my ass hanging off the seat and my left leg in the aisle keeping the other 2/3 out of the middle. FUUUUUUCCCCKKKKK! After this, I have to wait 25 minutes for them to drag my luggage into the terminal! At lease the car was all set and I had a nice ride into the office here. I left the house at 5:30 and walked into the building at 10am. My butt still isn't talking to me. After I talked to Shelly and explained what had happened she again busted her hump to get my tickets moved back to Airtran. Props out to her all the way!

While on my flight, I started getting to thinking about this whole mushroom thing and an evil thought blossomed. A manifesto! Every good revolution needs a manifesto, and so I have drafted one. If you want a copy, e-mail me and I'll get you one. A certain manager who prefers to not be named in my Blogs, has also been doing a good job trying to obtain us info about DeJuan and the quiet treatment he has been giving us. Let me digress a moment on this one thing. See I know bullshit when I smell it, and when I saw that one of the reasons they DeJuan had not spoke to us was that "they did not have everyone's address" and they use L-notes. Hmm, I really don't need to say anything, because many of my fellow mushrooms spoke up. You know what I'm saying here? They never heard of a DL? We have a really special one made just for us? I'm here on a whole nother account and I can send e-mail to everyone who still works for Ed. Nuff said!

As per today (tuesday)? It was quiet today. I did 2 tickets! Wow! Good thing I'm here, because I know that those would have gotten someone in trouble. Mr Roy and I had a little chat today about going home. He mentioned that things had been slow where he's at but it pick's up in spurts. Then we got into the whole "how long are you staying" talk and he made mention that they like having us around because we'll be filling in while some people go on vacation. HUH?? Oh man, now I know I'm done come May 23. I am so freaking out of here! These "guys" are so clueless that they'll be screwed whether we're or not. They need to hire people. Plain and simple. What do we do when one of us goes on vacation? We all team up and pick up the slack! See, I don't think they need us, I think they need to hire people LIKE us working here ALL THE TIME (as in start firing your poor performers - worked for us). Mr Bill was right (not to honk our collective horn) but you guys don't realize how good we are! Save me from shitheads like this!

17 Days and counting! (Till I'm back at the big X and this fun is over) Don't worry, the blog will live on!

Whooo Hooo!

Some dumb shit (who shall remain nameless but you'll know who I'm talking about) figured out today that if he rode with me to the airport that he would not have a way home come Monday! Duhhhhh! I've only been PMSing about this for a week now. No credit card = no plane ticket on Monday. Pretty simple to figure that out, but he only caught on this morning! Although today I just found out that DeJuan got our new paperwork and I should have my new card in 10-14 days. Hmmm...that means I should have it by the 13th? I plan (if it is okay) on coming back (being done with this TDY) near the end of May. Come back for a week or two to Rochester, and then come back here for a week or two? Uhh...riiiiggghhhtt. Of course I've heard a lot of the "locals" here would prefer that Shithead (my new name for the Dick that shall remain nameless in my blog - he lost his Mr title, so I'm a little pissed) go home rather then me. Wow, I'm glad they like me that much and recognize my customer talents. Well either that, or Shithead is no Mr personality. Of course Me staying ain't happening without someone coughing up some sort of incentive (i.e. bonus money, raise, etc.). The novelty done wore off this shit, I don't care how much everyone likes me.

Well I'm outer here! Might be another update today, maybe not. Gotta get home to the wife, get me some quality time! ;)