Sleep Aid

Another lunch-hour meeting… I’m sitting in a cold boardroom bored out of my mind, furtively trying to stop my stomach from growling; meanwhile "Tulio" is doodling in his notebook and trying equally hard not to doze off. I glance over and he’s written “KILL ME” in the margin, in appropriately faint script. I find this suddenly hilarious and laugh cough chortle just a bit too loudly. After a few questioning looks from my boss I feign the utmost attention, smiling and nodding as dutifully as I am able. I think it worked.

This particular “working group” meeting is particularly fruitless because everyone talks *at* each other and doesn’t listen. We’ve been at this for months now, and haven’t made much progress. I think we’d do better if we taped our sessions and sold them as sleep aids: the soothing monotony, disconnect and repetition is the perfect cure for insomnia.

The rhetoric alone makes me drowsy.

Pixel Death

There’s a dead pixel(s) on my new 19” LCD monitor, argh! It’s positioned halfway down on the left side, so particularly annoying for work. It resembles a rather forlorn accent aigu, stranded (in Excel) at the uppermost edge of the cell C15.

Never a dull moment here… ever been to a pixel wake? Remind them to sign organ donor cards before leaving that mysterious black hole called “PROCUREMENT”. My monitor was lost in Procurement for weeks; that probably had a negative effect on pixel lifespan, depression or claustrophobia or something. Or maybe they’re bored too, suffering brain-death, what with answering silly questions and fending off busybody emails from bosses.

Oh goodness, right on cue. 2:30 and the semi-retired guy sharing my cubicle wall is napping at his desk. Sparing his pixels. Welcome respite actually, since this morning I put up with his tirade against Caribbean cruises, streams of database design gobbledygook, and in-depth discussions about the weather (always too hot or too cold). I get the most work done when he’s playing Solitaire, because then he’s rather more quiet and focused. At least the “Easy” button toy is having a rest for now; I thought I was going to throw it out the window, especially when (get this!) he bought another one in French. Then he’d slap the English and the French immediately after. Officially bilingual, and twice as annoying.

Still grieving the pixel, hoping it’ll morph into something more interesting. Perhaps I should give it a name, now that it will be a permanent fixture in my life. Nobody say “Spot”.

Post-weekend blues

So there I was on St Paddy's, sitting on Mike & Ang's couch and sipping water out of a Magner's can (thx for understanding guys) and suffering from post-purchase anxiety, having dropped yet another few hundred bucks on tri gear. I'm not sure that anyone was impressed by my explanation of just WHY I now own 3 pairs of identical Asics running shoes in various states of wear and disrepair. While I remedied the first problem with a second visit to Bushtukah/ MEC today, I still have the second. Whoa, can you say party-pooper?

So look y'all, while I know you love me and my idiosyncrasies I just want to say thanks for the good time (Ang you're a wonderful host, Mike you make good Pogos :P) I've hit two milestones this week then: I've actually watched the Godfather trilogy (thanks to Paul) and eaten my first Pogo. Anything else I need to know? before I hit the ripe old age of *chokes*
... I can't say it. 3 more weeks to make my mark. PK says I should *ahem* flirt with one new guy for each new year. Ang says she'll give me lessons. Amanda says she'll take me shopping, if I promise not to dart into any bike shops or buy more running shoes. Heather just laughs.

Spring comes late to the capital, forgot to knock on wood and look what happens... freakin' windchill. I put off my run later and later, slept in, lazed about aimlessly, not wanting to go outside. However my 'coach' would not be impressed with this shit. Mapmyrun.com and my personal pace clock both agree: 16 miles/ 25.7k today. Got as far south as Riverside/Uplands, and had this urge to go all the way to the airport, but then I kinda freaked myself out because that is how I start my 90+ km rides (via Manotick) and here I was, on foot with no water, fuel or Gatorade, with the sun setting. NOT smart. I saw few runners today... blowing snow and wind scared 'em away. Maybe I'm the crazy one.

Don't want to go to bed because I'll dream about work... how pathetic. I'm usually trying to explain something to someone and they don't get it.... and I get frustrated and grab them and scream... you know, that would be nice to do in waking hours. PK: yes, let's discuss résumé next week.

This is what my education is for.

Today I was coached - patiently and with the best of intentions –by a senior colleague on the intricacies and inherent complexities of proper data entry in MS Excel. While I valiantly attempted to restrain my laughter, this fine gentleman explained in all earnestness how I was to procure a simple daily count, then sum to a weekly count, then sum to a monthly total. “Now just a minute!” you say, “did you not recently receive an honours degree in Commerce/Finance with an A average?”

Bah, what’s a piece of paper anyways? Never mind that: when this senior colleague was in school, the personal computer did not even exist. In fact, the sheer power of the Excel program is basically lost to him; the entire realm of matrices and calculations and charts and conditions floats on the horizon of his understanding. Once in awhile he will venture to change the font size or the cell shading, but beyond that all bets are off. It is not that he isn’t smart enough to learn; it’s more like he’s standing at the edge of a lake, not quite ready to take the plunge into cold and mysterious waters, unsure of his ability to swim.

As for stumping my superiors at least once per week, I filled my quota beautifully during this same meeting… with only this simple logic:

Beginning Inventory + In – Out = Ending Inventory

Another day, another dollar.

Pecking Order

God
Exxon
Shell
President Bush
Harper
Harper's friends
the DEPUTY HEAD
the ASSISTANT DEPUTY HEAD
the ASSOCIATE ASSISTANT DEPUTY HEAD
the Acting ASSOCIATE ASSISTANT Vice-DEPUTY HEAD
the Acting ASSOCIATE ASSISTANT Vice-DEPUTY HEAD when the AAAVDH is on vacation
the DG
the DIRECTOR
the MANAGER
the Team leaders
everyone who is at least 50 years old AND smokes
everyone who is at least 50 years old
everyone who is at least 40 years old AND smokes
everyone who says they SHOULD have been promoted many years ago
the Tech guys
the co-op students
the Cafeteria Lady
the Mail Guy
the window washers
the toilet scrubbers
Conrad Black
the Fly that I found in my soup
the Plebes
...
me.

Ellipsis

Today we broke the world record for stupid emails received before noon.

Again, it’s Monday morning, so it’s hard to expect intelligence to rear its nerdy head so early… especially in the government.

I’ll spare you the details, but I do need to share a pet peeve. I appreciate that creative use of punctuation can enliven most any prose, but excessive use of one particular element when another would be more appropriate is as disturbing as “Eats, Shoots, & Leaves”. In this case it is not the apostrophe that is the culprit, but the oft-neglected ellipsis.

My dear Nova-Scotian contact has several quirks, among them the tendency to address colleagues using their family names (despite how obvious the choice is – “Why hello there Jones Jennifer!”), and to inject every sentence with at least one ellipsis …

Now an ellipsis is a very intriguing creature: able to soften the blow of a harsh judgement, to join words from an original phrase which was too verbose to quote directly, to lend an air of uncertainty to both death and taxes, and to add a sense of mystery to even the most mundane subject. However, it should be used sparingly and with prudence.

You can see for yourself the difference:

Text: “See Jane Run”.
Translation: See Jane Run.

Text: “See Jane Run…”
Translation: You see Jane running but then Jane smacks straight into a tree or gets hit by a transport truck (you can’t foresee which).

Text: “See… Jane Run.”
Translation: You see, or I think you see—anyways—if you actually can see, you will see many things before you actually see Jane run, if at all you get to see her run, I think.

Text: “See Jane… Run.”
Translation: You see Jane, and she plans to run sometime in the future, but I can’t possibly tell you whether you will ever see her run or not, since before she gets around to running an indeterminable number of accidents might befall her. In fact by the time we get to the running part it might not be Jane at all.

Text: “See… Jane… Run...”
Translation: Whether you can see or not, you need to sign a waiver releasing Jane (or any person that Jane may substitute for herself) from any obligation to run (or engage in running-like activity) either now in the future, since she has an incalculable risk of getting hit by a transport truck or smacking herself into a tree.

So how much softness or uncertainty can you really inject with an ellipsis?

Dear Mr. Smith,

I regret to inform you… that your estate has been seized and unfortunately… no funds remain in your chequing, savings, or business accounts... Your liquidity is now zero…. You may declare bankruptcy within 48 hours…

Have a nice day….

I exhort all of my dear readers to refrain from abuse of the poor ellipsis and concentrate instead on forming mouth-wateringly grammatical sentences.

Much obliged.