Influences on Morale

Below is an abridged e-mail exchange, which may or may not really have happened. (You know which.)

A: B is having a problem copying records from production into test.

C: That's because the record numbers refer to different records in test than in production. You should limit the copying to records with longer numbers that are less likely to have copies in test.

A: (thinks to self - huh? It's almost 5:00. Surely C will write a real answer tomorrow.)

--Next Day--

D: C, are you sure about your answer, because it seems odd.

C: Yes, Test works totally different than Prod. In the short term you can ask the programmers to delete a record in test if you need to have the proper one there. In the long run, we'll stop using Test and start using Qual. And then you won't have to copy things over, because that gets updated monthly.

A: Um, what? We replaced unique numbers with numbers that are not unique? And now we have to bother programmers for things we used to be able to do ourselves? And we may have to make do with data that is up to a month old in the future?

C: Yes. I'm afraid that's the way things are.

E: You might want to make it possible to copy records over into Qual before we switch over.

A: Good idea.

F: C, please remove E from this listserve!

A, D, and E: (think to self and aloud to others: huh? We need E! We love E!)

D: F, I am the manager of that listserve. If we are ever going to ask E for help, he needs to be on this list.

E: (goes home.)

**

Other people may know how to work in a Dilbert-esque world, but I do not. I will settle for many kinds of crappy jobs, but let's just say the one time I quit without having another job lined up was when I recognized that no matter what I did, I would never be able to do what I considered to be an acceptable job. I mean, I am willing to plow through a lot of bureaucracy, if that's what it takes. And it's one thing to tell people daily, "Oops, thanks for finding that problem; we've fixed it" and telling people daily, "Sorry about that, be we are no longer offer that service."

**

I researched retirement rules. I looked at job listings. I tried to calculate the income I could retire on if I cashed in everything right now: $500/month. I'm not that good at frugality.

I tried to calculate how long it would take me to be able retire using only my own savings. Many, many years, no matter how you slice it. How can I still not even have $50,000 in my IRA? Haven't I been saving for a million years? I need ten times that much.

I am not good at job hunting. It took me 7 months of intensive, semi-desperate job hunting to find this job. It took 9 years of nondesperate job hunting to find my previous job. It took 2 years of increasingly desperate job hunting to find the job before that. And those are the only full-time, long-term jobs I've had.

I tried brainstorming ways I could work for myself. So far, I don't want to be that hungry.

I just took some self-tests that seem to show that I have a pretty low risk tolerance, but a pretty high risk capacity. Which means I don't like risk, but I can afford it. I can afford it because I don't like it, and so I have saved against it.

Some people don't take as much risk as they should. This usually means that old people have all their money in bonds rather than stocks, and this is not keeping up with inflation. But maybe it also means that I should quit without having anything lined up. Mmm, tempting.

If I wait a month, then give two weeks notice, I'll have worked long enough to have gotten credit for another year of service. Then I will have up to 14 months to find another job in time to get credit for the next fiscal year as well.

No, I would never do that.

Or would I?

No, I wouldn't.

At least not before now.

No, no. I wouldn't.

**

In other work news, I totally kicked the ass of the CSS code that I was working on. I have bent the internet to my will! Woo hoo! Every one of those stinking squares has full outlines on all four sides! I am the king of CSS!

The last thing that finally worked was learning that the three codes for lists (such as list-style) have to be attached to the li tag rather than to the ul or ol tags. (To keep ul an ol separate, use ul li and ol li.)

It's Like Being in Junior High Again

At the last minute I signed R. and me up for winter league ultimate frisbee. Today was the get-together where we find out what teams we're on and get to know each other at the local fish taco place.

I was one of the first people there. I introduced myself to someone. G. then guessed my last name. I looked down--no, I wasn't wearing a name tag. I asked how he knew. He said he saw all the names.

So, I'm on team 30. I only recognized two other names, and I'm not even sure I'd recognize those guys in person anymore.

I got the packets for R. and me. We get ads this year, because they found lots of businesses to sponsor us which I think means lunch is included on game days. We got a frisbee. And a pen. And a cup. And my personal favorite: gloves. We will also be getting t-shirts. They will all match, except each team will get a different color. Whichever team had the most people show up tonight got dibs on the color of their shirt.

Most of the colors are pretty. There's only one ugly one: burnt orange. The second worst color is white. Not bad, eh?

Gradually more and more people came in. I finally realized they mostly all know each other. No one called out team numbers looking for people, because when they looked at the team lists to find themselves, they could just see which other people on their team they knew and just walk over there.

That's how G. knew my name. He memorized the names of all the people he didn't recognize. All both of us. I confirmed with him that winter league is like summer league, where officially anyone is allowed to play even though they really hope you're going to be good.

R. got there as quickly as he could after work. We had some supper. Then we ran off to dance class.

No one else sat at my table or talked to me; nor did I talk to them. It's like being at a big party where you don't know anyone, and I'm not wild about big parties anyway. It's like being at a bar. I could use a few more social skills.

I started dreading this whole thing. I decided things have changed since I used to play in summer league, and it's been many years now. R. noticed that everyone was young: mid-twenties to mid-thirties. I noticed that people were older--when I used to play, people seemed mostly in their twenties.

Ultimate is catching on more places. People are getting more serious. Maybe I just don't belong on this kind of thing anymore. It's not like anyone would ever throw to me before anyway; I'm not sure how much worse it could get. I suppose looks of disgust. And yelling and stuff. I don't know.

On the way to class I went over some of the rules and strategies with R. This got me all excited again because ultimate is such a fun game. Even if no one is throwing to you, you do always have someone to try to keep up with or to try to escape. And I love the friendly trash talking. And I love trying to block throws, with both my arms and my legs--because my legs can reach so much farther. And I love how ultimate is a perfect game for people of all levels to play together, just so long as people are guarding people of similar abilities and so long as people throw to whoever's open, even if they know the person won't catch the disk. And these guys asked questions to help in creating teams with people of many levels. And many heights.

So maybe it will be fun after all, except for the part where it will be cold and windy. But hey, at least I have gloves now! Well, I already had gloves, but now I have two that match each other. That will be nice.

Note on title: Actually, two of my three junior highs were really good.