redhedlvr2

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Actually, this isn't too far off.

So, since my last post went so well, I thought I'd give another a try.  Topic?  Work rant!  What else?

I have ranted many times over the years about how insane my Boss is.  Here is another example.

His family used to own a hardware store.  He KNOWS everything about hardware.  He is The Hardware King!  And cheap, have I mentioned that yet?  So, whenever one of the toilets here breaks, he makes our lab assembly guys fix it.  No, we aren't plumbers or in the plumbing/hardware business, but the lab guys must drop whatever they are doing and fix the john when demanded.

Now, we have two toilets in the ladies' room.  Both tend to get clogged easily and frequently.  Two clogs ago, we were down to one john for THREE WEEKS!  The women in the building were stockpiling pitch folks and blunts objects for a little party they were planning later in the week and I told Boss I was calling a plumber because the guys in the lab couldn't fix the issue and I wanted to live to see the weekend.

The plumber came in, fixed the issue in like ten minutes and was gone.  Boss grumbled about how the company was losing money and I was taking his kid's college education away from them.  Whatever.

The next clog came, I stated "I am calling a plumber!" and did.  Boss had a huge fit, sent nasty emails to all involved about losing money and told me from now on, to call his personal plumber, Bill.  Which was fine.  It let the lab guys off the hook and would get the issue resolved with Boss's blessing.

Until last week.  The company's VP said to me, "The men's room is leaking".  I said, "I'll call Bill the plumber, not to worry".  Bill wasn't available (are we shocked?) so I left a message.  I emailed all the involved parties so everyone knew I was on top of it.  Then Boss came in, read the email and hit the roof.  Why are you calling a plumber?!  Make the lab guys do it!  Don't waste money!  He could replace anything in any toilet in the world, and it was the easiest thing and don't I know how much money the company was losing?  The sky is falling and the world is coming to an end!! 

The man has serious issues.  I feel sorry for poor Bill the plumber.

Or, at least that's how I feel.  Both dogs and both computers have viruses.  The desktop is taking a wee trip with one of Daughter-Type's friends who does computer stuff for a living, but is currently out of work.  He works for WoW game time cards, which works for me.  The laptop will probably go next but I'm not really certain it has an issue, or if it's just me being me.

I dog sat for Daughter-Type this week.  Bounder had a stomache virus which he promptly passed along to Ebony.  He's fine now and back home with Daughter-Type, but Ebony is sick as a, you guessed it, dog.  She had me up every three hours last night taking her out.  I felt like I had a new-born again, ugh.  I was up at 5am making "easy on doggie tummies" dog food.  Browned ground beef and rice, which she yakked up all over the place.  So much for that theory.

And on the work front, preperation for THE AUDIT has begun.  I don't remember there being any bloodshed last year, but I'm not ruleing it out for this year.  It's been a long time since we've had a good decapitation around here!

I just finished reading Tom Clancy's Dead or Alive.  Has anyone else read it?

( Cut for bookish spoilers )

My gaming life is, well, I'm not sure I can describe it.  I've gotten 3 toons up to level 85, one of which has finished her Cataclysm loremaster achievement, but now I feel like, what's next?  I don't raid and I've never done much as far as grouping due to much trauma early in my WoW career.  Their tradeskills are maxed out so I don't feel much urge to log on the game except when the guild is on.  It's my daughter's guild and we boast a whopping six members.  We only really are able to group on Saturday or Sunday afternoons and then I'm playing a warlock alt I made just so the guild would have one of each class.

Anyway, so Rift has a new patch, which I've not downloaded yet.  I'm thinking of taking advantage of the free server transfers and getting one of my three mains off Wolfsbane and on to a lower population server.  Except...I downloaded Everquest II, the free version, and have been playing that instead.  Even though I had to pay for the race/class I wanted.  Greedy bastards.  I really liked playing it last year until my WoW got hacked and Daughter-Type got the guild going.

Finally, my father, who is 80, is moving out of the house we lived in since 1966.  Talk about your traumatic experiences.  I have mixed feelings about the move.  There are just so many memories tied up in the place, both good and bad.  He's buried two wives living in that house, one just two years ago in July.  He has to be feeling conflicted as well.  My sister has been there every weekend to help.  But he is NOT listening to her.  She schlepps boxes, old half full paint cans and other toxic waste and minds the burn barrel in addition to general cleaning and the like, but whenever she ventures an opinion he shuts her out.  To me, this isn't new behavior, but he and I have a different relationship and always have had.

Anyway, he finally closed on a condo nearby and he is going to settlement on his house mid-July.  However, he doesn't want to part with the eight dining room chairs, both leaves for the dinning room table or any of the filing cabinets (six) to fit into his new, two bedroom place.  I have visions of the movers stacking up in the hallway outside the place with all that huge furniture going, "Where ya wannit buddy?" and not being able to get in the door.

Finally, our prima donna sales manager here at work has allegedly resigned.  The rumor mill has it that one of his prima donna sales team has caused him to have to do extra work, since he did not enforce proper returns policy with said sales dweeb, fondly dumbed King Baby.  So today, Sales Manager is absent, although the rumor mill does not believe it's a permanent thing, just a temper tantrum of some sort.  This place is just a laugh a minute, that's for sure.  One of these days, when I grow up, I'll have a real job at a real company, with a Ranger and Morellie dilemma like Stephanie's.  Oh well, dream on, right?

So, I did what I swore I wouldn't do last year when the Star Trek Online open beta started.  I'm playing the Rift open beta. Ugh.  But maybe not so bad as STO.  I did not have any trouble downloading or patching which is a plus.  As with STO, I took forever at the character creation screen.  So many choices, and colors and other options!  I love it.  And then it loaded up the game with no problems.

It seemed all the servers (shards?) were at high or full capacity, but I expected that.  Apparently the server I'm on, or maybe all of them, are set for Pacific time, which really suits my play style fairly well, since I tend to solo a lot.  I didn't have any trouble with picking up the basics, and yes, it's a lot like WoW.  But I also see elements of some of the other MMOs I've played.  I like the public group feature when you encounter rifts, which is similar to the auto grouping feature STO has. 

Finally, the big problem I had with the STO beta and first week of play was server stability.  I think they underestimated the number of people who were going to participate and the servers were always crashing.  I missed most of the head start weekend for that reason.  Hopefully the Rift folks will have learned from that.  However the shard did crash last night around 7pm Eastern.  I figure lots of West Coast folks were getting home from school/work and the East Coast folks had all had their dinner and wanted to play.  Something to watch for and hopefully they will have taken it into account.

Just my two cents worth on the subject.

Lord help me, I do not need another MMO to play.  AND I swore last year when I took part in the Star Trek Online open beta that I would never do another.  And yet... THIS beckons.  Like WoW isn't enough.  Ugh

Or maybe just whine.  Actually, let's go with whine, since I feel rather tired and peeved and just generally whiny.


There's the usual HATE MY JOB whine I could indulge in, but here are a few specifics.  Staying in whine mode of course.  Our receptionist, who is new and fairly nice so I really shouldn't be too hard on her, is annoying when she announces calls.  The PA system makes two beeping sounds before you can actually talk and she never waits for the second beep.  So all of her announcements are cut in half and we have to call her and ask who that last call was for.  I mean, nobody had to tell ME to wait for the second beep!  Whine, whine.

New Boss is still an ass.  Actually, he's a well paid, baby-boomer male in a cushy job and he has a slave (ME!) to do all the un-glamorous tasks.  This year he is apparently the one seaching for new healthcare insurance and I have nothing to do with the process except face the unhappy employees when they have questions.  And of course he's wedging his buddy-buddy insurance broker in and my trusted and longtime guy is out.  Bastard!  I know, dangerously close to a rant here.

My A/R clerk (at least I thing she's still mine, New Boss might have sole her too) will be on vacation tomorrow.  This means all the whiny, pushy sales people will be lining up at my door tomorrow begging to let their deadbeat customers buy just one more thing.  They'll pay on Monday, I swear.  Yeah right.

My dog decided to not wait for the treat I give her when I come home for lunch just to see her friendly face and have a nice petting session and ate a blue pen.  Right in the middle of my living room rug.  Waa waa.

I don't want to go to class tonight, see first line, even though we'll be getting our second test scores back tonight.  I did ok, so I'm not really worried.  I just want to go home and wallow in my whiny-ness.

( Cut for WoW whine )

Ok, now I have to get ready to talk to the ADP guy about how much they screwed up our timeclock and payroll system.  For anyone thinking of going with ADP, don't!  They are the most disorganized group I've ever had the misfortune of working with.  I could do a whole rant/whine just on how they screwed up our local taxes.  But, I'll save that for another post.

I'm feeling rather pressured lately.  Work has been the usual coming down from audit frenzy and gearing up for the "perfect fit" health care benefit-wise search.  On the home front my brand, spankin' new heat pump system for upstairs is not producing heat.  School has turned out to be DEMANDING! time-wise.  Ugh, homework sucks just as much as it did when I was a kid.  And then there are my leisure pursuits.

I had a turn at the crack_van  last month that was both fun, and a bit stressful.  Stressful because I'm a crappy writer and my reviews weren't anywhere near worthy of the stories themselves.  But, practice and making perfect, right?  Also, when October rolled around, I sort of missed it, since obviously I had fun, even if I'm a crappy writer.

Then there's WoW.  The new Xpac has been announced for December 7, and the pressure is on.  I'm too much of an altaholic and the result is I have only ONE level 80 toon and a bunch of 60s and 70s.  So my dilemma is which pair do I want to hit 80 by December the most.  I 2-box as well, just to keep things interesting which sort of compounds the problem.  I'm leaning towards my pally/mage combo since they have turned out to be the most fun to play and there really isn't much outside of a dungeon that they can't tackle if I stay calm and don't button mash too much.

So much to do, so little me to go around.