I don't understand people

Do you ever just have one of those days where it just seems so surreal? That all you can feel is total shock? Days where you wonder if this is really life? Today has been one of those days. I get to work to find an email from my Dad because my aunt's brother decided to kill his recently ex-wife and then turn the gun on himself last night.

They have two teenagers. I can't even begin to imagine the kind of screwed up they are going to be now. Of course, most of you know that I can "appreciate" some of this story. My mind boggles at these types of actions, has for a few years now. At least I can say that my Mom left me with having my Dad still... but what kind of selfish bastard takes both from their kids?? I mean really, what is it people's heads that makes them think that doing this is acceptable? All that I can really come up with is that people who do this are sick, are missing some part of their brain that controls reason. My brain can't seem to wrap around this concept.

Still alive

Okay, I have to be the slackest person ever when it comes to writing here. You know its' sorta funny, because during the day I have thoughts that would be a perfect post but I can never remember or get around to it once I get home. So since it's my "late day" at work, I thought I'd post before heading in. Guess that's a good lead in to talk about work... so here goes.

Work has been great but very busy. I finally feel like I have a job that I don't have to water myself down to do. Most of you might be in disbelief when I say this, but my manager speaks her mind and is more judgmental than me. It's rather amusing, LOL. I'm still surprised that she asks me to "watch her" on certain days so that she doesn't do/say something to get herself fired. It's also all around refreshing to be with a manager that isn't afraid to do what needs to be done. For example (I can't tell you how much shit like this irritates me), most managers will send an email out to the entire team about something when only one person screws up. She deals with the problem person directly. That, in my opinion, is the way a manager should be. All in all, I love my new job. I think its just rather difficult for people have who leadership abilities to be in non-leadership jobs. We don't make the best followers :) I really like most of my team. As with every team, there are those that carry their weight and some of others, and those who can't carry their own. Reminds me of something my Dad always said, which is that, "20% of the people do 80% of the work." How true is that??

I decided not to take the Italian class afterall. I was very disappointed with the other "students." I am putting ()'s around that word. You will probably understand why I did that as I describe my issues with the class. Most of the students were older. Now, that isn't a problem in itself, but a lot of them didn't seem to pay attention or are just a little over anxious or maybe just stupid. I'm not really sure, LOL. Celeste (teacher) would say something like, "99% of all verbs that end in O will have a pronoun of il." Yet we would have some people who would raise their hand when she said a verb that ended in O and ask what the pronoun is!?!?!?!?! I mean geezus, my 2 years of Italian in college has NOTHING to do with me being irritated by questions like that. And of course, there are those idiots who ask the teacher to repeat every second thing that she said. I can't handle being in a class with people like this. I don't have the patience for it. I am very intolerant of those that can't keep up. I think that if I want to take a class like this, it is going to have to be a credit class at a "real" university here. Maybe then people will actually be a little more with the program. The summary here, stupid (slow people who don't pay attention) people piss me off! :)

And something else that I really tend to notice around here is RUDE people. I mean, seriously, the people here have no manners whatsoever. I especially notice this in grocery stores or places like Target. Like these people will even look at you, right before they walk out right in front of you or just cut in front of you in line. It amazes me. It's the same type of people that think that they can park right in front of a store in the fire lane. It is the sense of entitlement that they must feel in order to think it's okay to behave this way. The summary here again is, stupid (rude) people piss me off. Common theme, isn't it? LOL

One last thing. I think the word "seriously" is going to be making a come back thanks to the cast of Grey's Anatomy! I just have to say that I LOVE LOVE LOVE that show and I hope that the stupid Vet goes away :) McDreamy is the better choice.. discuss!

My week from hell.......

Okay, really should say my past few days of hell. Let me start from the beginning...

Last Wednesday I had an appointment to take my car to the mechanic. It was acting really funny, but only intermittently. What was happening is that it would shake, like it was about to die, from sitting at a stop and even during acceleration. Of course, the day I took it in, it was behaving. The mechanics couldn't get my car to shake, etc. They had to keep it over night and called me the next day to say that 3 of my cylinders were clogged w/carbon. So they had to take apart part of the engine to clean them out. I picked it up the next day and had no problems...until yesterday. I was out picking up lunch for my Manager and I, this time it start shaking but the check engine light was flashing, the car smelled funny and it sounded strange. I call the mechanic who tells me not to drive it. Soooooooo, I have to wait an hour for the tow truck. They couldn't work on it that night, so I get a call today that says I have a bad spark plug that needs to be replaced. Mind you, my car only has 56k miles on it and spark plugs normally don't have to be replaced until closer to 100k. What the hell?! Anyways, so now I have a PLATINUM spark plug. Whatever the hell that does for me, I don't know. All I know, is that this BETTER fix the problem now.

Next issue: I had to find something to wear to my Dad's wedding last weekend. Dee and I went shopping last Thursday evening and I found the most incredible dress at Nordstrom! Surprise, I found something to Nordstrom... anyways. The alterations people had to take it that night for a few adjustments. The dress weighs about 5 lbs or so due to beads. Anywho, I told them I needed it by noon on Saturday. Hugh and I go to pick it up at noon on Saturday, I go to try it on and the zipper gets stuck! Alterations said the zipper was gone and they had to completely break it in order for me to get the dress off. Needless to say, I was in panic. However, in typical Nordstrom fashion, they had a brand new zipper put in within an hour and a half. I am glad it broke then and not later on when I was getting ready to walk out the door.

Last thing was the actual wedding. In all honesty, it was one of the most painful days of my life. The best way to describe how I felt was that my Mom had died again. None of my family mentioned one word about my mother to me. This, of course, is unusual since I almost always get comments that I look like my Mom. Luckily Hugh was never more than 5 inches away from me the whole time. When her family would come up to talk to me, the best I could do was "hello" and then Hugh would talk their ear off so that they would leave me alone. I barely made it through the ceremony and then I only lasted about 30 minutes into the reception when I started balling and Hugh had to get me out. All I can say is that I made it as far as I did only because he was with me. I have a new found respect for my "little brother" Hugh. (Just in case you need an explanation of Hugh, he is Mom #2's son and my family, especially my mother, loved him like a son.)

09/11/2006

Unlike past generations, there are very few events or days that my generation will remember all of their lives. The first is January 28, 1986. This is the day that the space shuttle Challenger exploded. The date is not as well remembered as 9/11, but we all remember the explosion. I will always remember my childlike shock and disbelief when I saw the news.

I don't even know where to begin in my comments about this day in world history. I will never forget where I was and what I was doing when we all heard the news. I can now appreciate my Mom's comments when she recalled her whereabouts the day that JFK was assassinated. I don't remember who yelled out the news first. But I was at work, we were desperately trying to load news websites so that we could see what was happening. None of which would load due to traffic on the sites. Many of us cried, many of us couldn't believe the assholes that were calling us to check on the status of their travel reimbursements while we were getting the news of these events. I remember that all planes were being grounded, but a few were still in flight. My Mom called me at work to tell me that a close family friend was on one of the planes still in the air. I was incredibly afraid. After arriving home from work, I was glued to the TV screen, as the images that were being shown horrified me. I cried until I had no tears left to cry. May you all rest in peace. Hopefully there can be peace to those families who lost loved ones in knowing that our country will never forget all of those who risked their lives. They will never be forgotten.

Last week on the job

Well, finally my last week before my new job is over. Never thought Friday would get here. I was spending a few hours each day in my new building each day. I got to sit with some of my team to see what they were doing. This last day on my "old" job totally sucked. I was in the other building for a few hours, and I come back to this whole pile of work that my management wanted done before I left today. So basically, I was there until after 5pm today. Needless to say I won't miss some of my old team which couldn't congratulate me new job because they were too concerned about who was taking my place so that their work wouldn't be interrupted.

I had to go see a piercer because I had to get 2 of my ear piercings taken out because they would occasionally get infected still. I got them pierced in November, so I was a little disappointed to still have problems with them. Of course, I couldn't leave the place without getting something, LOL. I had her "reopen" this piercing I had on the top of my ear. I guess when you had it as long as I did, it never completely closes when you take it out.

There are 2 other things that have happened that I haven't mentioned yet because I really don't want to talk about either of them. First, my Dad is getting married next month. Of course, I am very upset by this. Also, if any of you know me well at all, please don't be stupid and ask me, "Well, don't you want your Dad to be happy?" The response you would get would not be a kind one. Second is that I found a new home for Athena that has everything I ever wanted for her. I love her more than most humans, and when you feel that way about something, the most important thing becomes their happiness. This family has a BIG and fenced in yard that she can run and play in, a wife that stays home all day and another dog that Athena loves. Their kids love her too. I have been sent scanned images of pictures that the kids have drawn saying how much they love Athena and how she is the perfect dog. Of course, I can't begin to explain how sad I am, but it helps to know that Athena is in a place where she can be outside, play with another dog and have people around more often that I could be.

Alrightee, that's it for now.

Some job details!

Okay, Sam, this is for you ;)

I was announced formally yesterday. That was fun! Although I'm so evil I had to do something fun first. I also applied for a team lead job on the HR Solutions team, which basically I work with more often because I am one of their Tier 2's. A lot of them knew I was applying for that job. So the day I was supposed to be over there, I hung out with them for a few minutes and stuff, just to screw with them for a while first. Aren't I evil?? Of course, they were all looking at me as if I was going to tell them I was going to be their new team lead. They knew I was over there for some announcement, but that was it. Of course, my new manager, also named Laura thought it was too funny that I messed with them first. Gotta have a little fun!!

I will be the team lead for the Disbursements team, which includes Payroll and Travel stuff. This is the team that I started with back when I was first hired by IBM. There are a few members on the team that was in the same group I was hired with. That should be interesting. I've had 3 promotions since then and they are on the same team, anyways. I had hoped for a bigger increase because I am jumping up a few levels for this job. Turns out only to be like 2k more a year than I make now. Kind of disappointing but my bonus potential goes up to 15%, from the maximum 10%, I get now plus I will only be one-step away from management. This is basically a transition position for me and everyone is rather aware that I want to be a manager ;)

I'll have to carry around pagers and cell phones and stuff because I will now be tied to the call queue. I guess queue management is a big part of my job. We have some pretty tight metrics that we have to adhere to from what I understand. I like the fact that I will have a good bit of authority except on personal issues with the team which are still done by my manager. There is also a senior rep on the team which basically helps me to do my job. That will be interesting. I'm not really sure exactly how many people are on my team. I think there are around 20'ish now, plus my manager is hiring another 8. So, I think it will be around 30 when all is said and done. I am expecting to work 50 hour or so weeks. Especially until I learn all I need to know.

K, enough boring work stuff. You will notice that I have posted a picture of me with the Stanley Cup on the little flickr thing on the left-hand side of my site. Of course, I could have worn a shirt that actually fits that day, but I guess I wasn't in the mood ;)

I got the job!

I found out today that I got the promotion that I was wanting!! Yay!! I don't know hardly any details at this point because I am still waiting for the offer letter to be drafted. All I really know is that I will be a team lead and that it should be effective 8/28. So that means I have to try to not go crazy waiting for the effective date to get there. How impossible is that going to be? Everyone knows my patience is like nil and I'm SO bored with my current job. I will post more as I know!

Lord Stanley's Cup!

Okay, today marked another cool event in my life. I went to a little "party" today that was hosted by Jeff Daniels, who was a former player on the Carolina Hurricanes and is now a coach. Soooo, at this party, arrived the Stanley Cup, the most prized possession in hockey! It was awesome to say the very least! I got to touch the Cup and I even had a few pictures taken with it :) How many people can say that?? VERY exciting! :)

Another fun thing about today... Halloween stuff has been put out at Michael's! Halloween is my most favorite holiday... surprise, right? Anyways, I had to pick up a few things... not for just seasonal decor either ;) I got this nifty sign that plugs in that says, "Bats Motel - no vacancy." I also got some skeleton garland and this talking skull. You can't beat that! There is one thing that I saw today that I have to have. It is this 6 foot tall mummy lady that kinda sorta howls (?) and stuff. How sweet is that?!?! It is $100 so I want to get one of those 50% of coupons to use because that thing is too incredible to pass up ;) I'm a freak, I know. What can I say, I love Halloween!!!

Well, the weekend is almost over, which means that I should find out (hopefully tomorrow) if I get that promotion or not. Please keep your fingers crossed for me!