The Lowest Common Denominator
And Then There Was One None
January 9, 2018
I lost my other student today.
My boss pulled my remaining trainee off the thing I was training him on, because she wanted him trained on the thing that my other trainee was pulled off of my training to do. So now neither of them are completely trained on the thing that I was training them to do, which means as soon as they're done with that thing that she has them doing, we'll have to start all over again. Sigh.
Oh well. It's not my money.
And Then There Was One
January 8, 2018
I lost one of my students today.
Typically, when the management gives me someone to train, they're a new hire. Because apparently nobody knows what to do with new people once they come in the door, so they're given to my department. And since I'm the only person in said department signed off on everything we build, that means I'm typically the guy who gets stuck with showing everyone else the ropes.
But as it turns out, I am either a) a terrible trainer, or b) what I do is actually a lot harder for other people to deal with, because usually my trainees quit soon after they're given to me. I tend to think it is 'a', but then again, I am an electronics engineer, so maybe it's not. I do try to be a decent person, after all, and ensure I don't leave new folks hanging, but who knows?
This time, though, one of my people was pulled because the boss had something more 'important' for them to do. Which is how I lose most of my other students. The company is completely controlled by managers who don't know how to plan more than a day or so ahead, so problems in the facility will persist for years, as almost all of their collective energy is dedicated to putting out the latest fires.
Which means I'll probably be student-free by the end of the week.
My Ass
January 7, 2018
My ass is broken.
Long, long ago, at the very end of last year, I took a fall. I was under the influence of what you might describe as substances, and upon attempting to stand up at some point before midnight once we were home, I found that my body was not responding in the usual fashion. You know, you try to walk and your legs start moving, that kind of thing. So I stood up, and then immediately teetered backwards.
Normally, being a clumsy foulup and generally uncoordinated boor, I am well-versed in the fine art of falling. I have a tendency to go limp, aside from a sort of tuck and roll maneuver, which lets most of my excess absorb the energy inherent to someone of my mass making an unplanned transition from the vertical to the horizontal. But on New Year's Eve, well, I tried to right the ship, instead.
This caused me to stumble backwards about ten feet before finally tipping over, and I landed on my ass. Not just my ass, mind you, but my tail bone. And the floor wasn't carpeted there. No, it was tile over concrete or something in that portion of the house, so I hit hard. I didn't really feel it properly that night, because as I said, substances. But that next morning? Oh my Marduk.
A week later, it's still going strong, my ass. It hurts when I stand up. It hurts when I walk. It hurts when I sit down. It hurts when I lie down. It hurts when I stand in place. It hurts just about all the time. And it has hurt, now, for the last seven days. It seems to be on a slow, slow creep towards sorting itself out, but my mobility is limited. Attempting to run caused me to see stars.
As is always the case, I was interrogated about this by just about everyone at work. Sure, they've grown vaguely accustomed to my tendency to injure myself frequently, but I've been hobbling around the joint looking like an eighty year old man with a corn cob shoved up his exhaust pipe. And you can't just say 'I fell after I punched my brain with substances and landed on my butt bone.' Well, I'd rather not, anyway.
"Yes. Yes, I fell on some ice."
Didn't Do Nothin'
January 6, 2018
While I have been inexplicably productive at work, despite being saddled with two trainees and the first two days of doing nothing, I have to say I haven't adjusted to being back at work all that well since my two weeks off. I suppose that's why I slept in distressingly late today, and didn't really bother to do anything. Oh, sure, I killed some suckers in Guild Wars 2, but aside from that, what have I accomplished?
Nothin'. No cleaning, no Technoholic updates, no anything, really. And I am okay with that. This is because my time off wasn't really time off, as I was busy the whole time. Starting by driving to Omaha, attending a funeral, visiting family, driving back to Yellow Springs, and finishing by cleaning the house from top to bottom since a critter broke in while we were out. So yeah, didn't get a lot of leisure time.
So I don't feel guilty making up for a bit of lost time. And make up for it I have! I am sure that I will have to get back to adulting tomorrow, but I've greatly enjoyed my time of noth having to bother with doing anything other than eating, peeing, and of course fetching one snack and/or beverage after another. And then I wonder why I am still all soft around the middle. Beh.
Faking It Until I'm Done Making It
January 5, 2018
So at work, I am currently training two people to build a thing. At the same time, more or less. At differing stages of said build. Because my boss thought that it was a good idea to train both of these people in order to find something for them to do, because they had even less to do than I did before yesterday. And I don't really argue with my boss, because I'm not all the other clowns that I work with.
I experience this everywhere I work, and it is unfathomable to me that so many of these quibblers don't get thrown out the door. I mean sure, I'm a know-it-all, too, but the difference is a) I actually know what I'm talking about, and b) I was brought up to not argue with the people that are signing your paychecks. Besides, the management where I work wouldn't listen if I actually did enlighten them on anything.
But I digress. The best part about my training two of my coworkers to build this thing is that I'm not actually trained on building it, either. Surprise! Thus, yesterday, today, and probably half of next week will consist of me faking it, brazening it out, and pretending that I actually know what I'm talking about. Of course, these are things that I do excel at, so I'm not at all worried. Amused, but not worried.
Idle Time
January 4, 2018
I finally had to do something today. I completely exhausted all of my extant tasks before I went on that big, two week holiday break / funeral break at the end of last year, and when I came back nothing had replaced them. As it so happens, the person who was forecasting that we would be busier than ever before over the course of 2018 was lying to us, for we're actually only going to have about half our usual work.
I hate the salaried turds where I work. The guy who pulled this stunt has been doing this for years and years, and nobody has called him on it - much less bothered to tell us that all of the forward-looking things we look at during each of our quarterly meetings were a complete sham. Thus, I've gone from expecting to be working sixty hour weeks all year to having to ponder getting a second job.
Since building power electronics for military aircraft that, in total, cost two hundred and twenty two million dollars doesn't pay much more than being the manager at your local Burger King ™. Which is pretty dumb, when you think about it, because not everyone has the integrity to resist selling out to corporate spies. Or regular spies, for that matter. Not that I would, but my coworkers? Who knows with them.
They seem to love the traitor squatting in our White House right now, after all. Why wouldn't they take after him?
Fairies hopped up on Technohol
January 3, 2018
I spent all day at work plotting out a year worth of updates for my nerd site, because I didn't have anything to do. Ostensibly, I was engaging in yearly updates to various things the company does to say that hey, at least they told us about the asbestos in the building, but I actually wrapped those up in minutes. They were supposed to take me eight hours, though, so that left me in a bind.
On the plus side, I finally worked out how I wanted the electrophonic gobbledygook bouncing around in my head to translate into actual, playable rules work on two small portions of my Work of the Ages, so I was pretty happy with that. Having mulled these over for several years, one could say I am actually ecstatic. Besides, it's not too often that I'm actually paid to engage in nerdery, so who am I to argue?
In the end, this is one that I ultimately cooked up. That's over on my nerd site, Technohol 13, which has been running strong for almost twenty full years, now. It'll start its twenty first on April 9th, and I'm slowly, but surely, modernizing everything I've ever written there. Since it includes stuff I've worked on over the last thirty years, that's kind of a big deal, and almost leaves me ready to focus on only new material. Yay!
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