I'm gonna pull out his fingernails!

Just a bunch of randomness today.

1. Happy April Fools Day!  It must have been quite early in the morning for me, my friend whom I just had dinner with last night updated his 'relationship' status on facebook to..."In a relationship"...  I saw it and nearly spit out my morning tea.  For all of 3 seconds I went "who is this mysterious woman and why didn't he tell me last night?"  Almost instantaneously after that thought I said to myself, "self...weren't you about to post an April Fools joke?"  YES, yes I was.  And it all clicked into place.

2. I was once again left to my own devices at work being the sole person in the entire engineering department for very nearly the entire day yesterday.  For the brief moments I did have my bosses around, one so nicely left me with a permit application stating, "this needs to get out today".  My terror response kicked in knowing I would be unable to complete it before the end of the day, and by the end of the day found I needed his signature anyway so I felt mildly less guilty about not finishing.  This morning I was preparing to get into my zone, ignoring everything else, and punch it out, only to have said boss come in and say "we have to change the drawing!"  All of a sudden my Friday just got a gazillion times better.  Not that I have any less work, in fact I have more work now that I have to change the whole drawing again...but the guilt over not finishing yesterday was quickly hurling me into depressed oblivion.  What a relief to not have that stress anymore.

***EDIT:  Taking a 10 min hiatus...apparently even though I have to change the entire drawing set again, essentially creating a whole new different one, I have to try and get this out today.  I spoke too soon when I said I'm glad not to have that stress anymore... ::head explodes::***


3. I'm sitting at my desk this morning enjoying my tea, and I hear my boss in the corner rifling through papers on the drafting table muttering sweet nothings to himself.  Things like "I'm going to fucking kill him." and "I'm going to pull out his fingernails".  How romantic you are bossman.  Apparently he put the surveyor in charge of assembling copies of yet another permit application.  Nothing hard about punching holes and binding paper when you have an old binding machine right?  One was backwards and out of order, one was punched on the wrong side, and the third copy was punched too close to the edge so the pages were falling out.  I would be muttering those sweet nothings to myself as well as a few..."what...an...idiot..."

4. Shoe girl got a $5 gift certificate in her inbox today for DSW.  Birthday shoe shopping? Yes, please!!  Where did I put that $10 certificate???? Must. Find. Certificate.

It's goin' on facebook!!

There are days when you just have the greatest, fantastical conversations with friends that you know you want to immortalize forever into your memory.  However, at least for me, my ability to retain any long term memories is hampered due to my ever failing short term memory.  I blame facebook. And smart phones, and television, and google chat, and...the internet.  Basically the ever growing use and dependency on technology has caused my brain to short, resulting in a complete lack of focus and attention deficiency.  People my age and younger may claim from time to time that we are excellent multi-taskers.  I have found that to be entirely...well, wrong.  I can switch from task to task, and in fact I often prefer it, getting bored easily of monotonous tasks that only access a certain portion of my brain at a time. 

That said, the best way for me to forever memorialize any event, conversation, moment is to record it to be read and reviewed at a later time.  If I'm at the computer, this of course is a simple task, often by referencing an inside joke on a friends' facebook wall.  However, I'm not always at a computer, conversations are not always via text or gchat, or facebook... So I tend to forget.  I forget a lot.  So much that sometimes I think there may be a good possibility of memory problems when I get much much older. 

My solution lately has been...It's goin on facebook! Therefore, when someone says something wildly hilarious, once I'm done rolling in laughter, holding my sides trying to inhale live saving oxygen, I try to make an effort to remember it.  Sometimes, its by taking out my iphone and leaving a "WILD BIRD!!" message on one of my closest friends wall.  And now I think about it, and smile...

Angry Rant Time

Normally, I'm not a feminist.  Yes, I believe in equal rights for all men and women alike, but I don't necessarily think women deserve anything extra.  Times are changing, women are becoming more powerful in the work place and the majority of the time it's because they worked for it.  In an industry that has always been male dominated, I bow down in respect to those who get there.  I'm not gonna lie, if I eventually get work because some hardcore feminist made the government require a certain percentage of work to go to a minority and/or woman, I'll take it.  But where I'm at right now...and here's to hoping none of the upper management in this company find this blog...DAMN THIS BOYS CLUB OF A COMPANY.

Shortly after I started here, I realized how much of a 'boys club' it was.  It doesn't really bother me as I'm always going to be unaffected.  For some reason, our little engineering group stands outside of normal day-to-day production.  We even can hide ourselves away from the rest of the office by closing a door.  So fine, no big deal. It irks me a little though, to see how the rest of the office is structured.  Normally, I just don't say anything and move on with life.  If they don't do anything about it, and they can deal with working in that way, more power to them.  I just know I couldn't and wouldn't put up with it.

I know where I stand here, and thank god for my boss who has helped to manipulate the misguided perceptions of a certain individual who happens to be head honcho of this joint.  I get respect because of what I do, and even then it's because my boss has given credit to where its due.  Not that it's that much of a big deal for me to get credit for what I do, but the little credit the does come my way helps to keep my job from morphing into something 'other' in this place.  One of my reviews with the president very nearly caused me to quit.  Let's just say he tried to "promote" me to being my boss's 'assistant'.  He literally said that I would answer his phone calls.  Like fucking hell I would.  I don't mind doing the extra busy work that needs to get done for my boss, but there's no way anyone is going to get me to do dictation.   Luckily, my boss didn't go for it.  Not that he outright crossed the man but more like worked around his idea of my job description...

Over the past few days, I've been asked to print off an office organization chart.  Basically it says who does what and who manages whom.  Boy, it is all over the place.  Today, I finally noticed one additional tidbit.  A new name.  I knew we were hiring a new person for accounting.  The financial manager is pregnant and is going to be on maternity leave soon, we recently had someone quit and although we replaced the person who quit there's still too much work for accounting to handle.   So there were a few interviews, all of them interviewed by the financial manager because she needed the new hire to be able to help with some of her responsibilities when she goes on maternity leave.  I knew they had picked one of the guys, but I just didn't know when he'd be starting.  Apparently it won't be for another couple weeks, which would put it about a week or 2 before she goes on maternity leave. 

No big deal having a new hire to help out with some managerial duties, right?  At least, that has been the assumption around accounting, which for reference, are all women. Well, according to this organization chart, he's placed above her.  Now, maybe I don't know the whole story...maybe he was hired to be a financial manager manager...?  She's been the financial manager now for longer than I've been here, and finally got her own office a year and a half ago. But I know the reason she's that high up in the food chain is that she knows her shit, and worked for it.  (and is still working for it)

I asked about the new hire, when I gave the print back to the person who asked me to print it. She made a circling motion around the accounting bracket saying "yeah, that's going to cause a lot of problems. you didn't see this" shaking her head and covering the names.  Taken aback by that comment, I probed further...and basically, no one knows what the new guy was hired for.  I can bet you no one is expecting that particular adjustment in the chain of command. And the way things change around here, I'm not sure she will still have her office by the time she comes back from maternity leave. 

As previously stated, I'm not normally a feminist...but the way I'm seeing this situation? She has worked her ass off for these guys and they're essentially "demoting" her.  For what? Because she's pregnant?!  That is such bullshit, not to mention illegal in about a thousand different ways, yet I'm sure they'll find some legal work-around for an excuse.  I'm curious to see how they'll pull this one off.  It's infuriating, and I'm tempted to forward this chart to the financial manager.  Although I may be genetically predisposed for an addiction to drama, I try not to cause it.   Who knows, maybe she already knows what's going to happen....

My girl scout cookie addiction...

Every year, it never fails, at least one mother brings in that glossy tri-fold order form offering the greatest treats ever invented....the girl scout cookie.  Continuing to perpetuate my unending addiction to the best of them all, the thin mint.  If left unattended, I will eat the entire box in one sitting.  The order form has changed many many times, names have changed, cookies dropped from the selection list, etc...but the one thing that has always been constant is the thin mint. But of course, its the best seller!

Last month, our resident girl scout mom brought in the order form and of course I had to order some.  At $4 a box though, I curbed my addiction and only ordered 4 boxes of thin mints, 1 box to leave at my desk for munchies and 3 boxes to go home and be devoured by the husband.  I also ordered a box of samoas, previously known as caramel delites.  The delectable combination of chocolate, caramel, and coconut adds a new layer of mind blowing sweetness that only makes my taste buds do a happy dance.  Yet, nothing the sweet samoa offers holds a candle to the minty crispness of the thin mint.  Every crunchy bite of peppermint flavored chocolate explodes in my mouth causing an eruption of endorphins to surge through my blood, creating blissful euphoria for the few seconds it takes to devour one cookie.  I cannot stop at just one little taste, I must have more!


There must be more to the cookie than a simple chocolate wafer covered in peppermint chocolate, yet as I examine it inside and out using all my senses I can find no such difference.  We have tried once to make homemade thin mints last year after the last of the seasonal cookies were ingested...it didn't turn out so well.  It is quite difficult to make such a small skinny cookie.  I will attempt to create this delicacy in my home kitchen again this year, keeping at least one sleeve available for taste testing.  But sooner or later, it will get eaten.  Hopefully I am able to find the best replica recipe somewhere in this world...that's what the internet is for is it not? Many people have come up with 'thin mint' knock-offs, but from what I can tell so far...none are the right consistency for the wafer cookie, or the right amount of peppermint, or light and flaky just as the original. 

I most recently found this recipe for "Homemade Thin Mints"  and I hope with everything in my belly it's close.  The picture looks awfully close to the real thing...doesn't it? <----------
Maybe this weekend I will vainly attempt to recreate it in my kitchen.  I know the husband would be all for it if I could concoct such tastiness with my own two hands and he wouldn't have to wait for girl scout cookie season.

My cookies have arrived, though I asked my co-worker to hold them hostage since I haven't paid for them yet.  And if I receive them and take them home I'm liable to forget to pay her.  I did snag a sleeve of thin mints, and have managed to refrain from eating it all...but now I have the taste in my mouth and it's bringing out my inner cookie monster....*roar*

I'm not sure I can hold out from eating the rest of them before the end of the day.  My hope is to bring the rest of the sleeve to my PE review class tonight so I can snack on them whilst sitting through a session with the most incredibly boring speaker/lecturer in this series thus far.  Just another hour to go and I should be good to take them to class with me.

COOOKIES!! NOM NOM NOM...