Backlogging and Clearcutting
Okay, it's been a while since I felt like writing, and I've passed up some really significant events. Where to begin?
October 12 was a good day.
WBWolf drove Beth,
Taper and me to Portland to see Spirited Away (Sen To Chihiro No Kamikakushi to Japanese buffs, but I calls 'em like I sees 'em--and I saw this one in English). I'd love to get an opinion of this movie from someone who isn't into anime and doesn't already worship Hayao Miyazaki as a god, because although I was in heaven watching it I did wonder if others might find it somewhat random and disjointed. It might have been, but I didn't mind; it had an Alice In Wonderland flavor to it. I refer to the book, of course, not the Disney schlock.
We stopped at Owajimaya and Kinokuniya on the way up, which is always a bittersweet mixture of being surrounded by wonderful Asianities, desperately wishing I could read Japanese, and perversely wanting to buy a durian. Alas, just the back issues of Kitty Goods Collection magazine alone would set me back a hundred dollars I don't have. At least I got to browse through them; among the highlights were plush figures of Hello Kitty in a Playboy Bunny costume and figures of Hello Kitty superdeformed (as if she weren't enough already). Among the lowlights: a line of products featuring Hello Kitty and Tweety. Flee in terror!
I'm not much of a Sailor Moon fan, but I ended up buying a Sailor Moon World 2003 calendar that was too pretty and pink to pass up. I'm going through one of those phases again. Between that, the new Hello Kitty ballerina plushie, and the Powerpuff Girls pen and highlighter set made to look like nail polish and lipstick respectively, I'm definitely retreating into little girl mode. I think that happens when I'm stressed.
A major source of stress recently has been that the Content Developer position opened at work on September 29, which would be off of the tech support phones and instead writing documents for both support and the general public. I've been trying to get that job since about mid-2000, and I have a long history of rejection. At the same time, an Editor position appeared; this would be non-technical and more language-intensive, which I would also like, and for which I've been turned down as well.
I applied for the Content Developer position somewhat half-assedly, not including a cover letter like the ones I've poured my heart into the previous times I applied. After that, I was talked out of the Editor position by the person who was leaving the group--it turns out that she was sick of spending a third of her day documenting what she had done all day, so I decided to give that one a miss.
The reasons I didn't put much effort into the application were threefold. First, I'd already tried putting effort into it, and it didn't work. Second, I wasn't really all that unhappy with my current job; sure, I was on the phones, but corporate customers are, surprisingly, a lot easier to work with than retail consumers. I thought for sure that I'd be inundated with furious administrators whose million-dollar servers had just been eaten by our software, and indeed those customers are out there, but for the most part the calls are laid-back, overpaid and only mildly stressed admins who have some idea what they're doing.
Mostly, though, I didn't agonize over the application because applications are agony. You have two or three pages on which to account for your life and what you've made of yourself, and between that and an hour's worth of questioning your life's path will be decided. If you're not sure that you're good enough for the job, or just good enough in general, how can you persuade someone else that you are?
Two weeks later, I interviewed for the CD job. I was impressed; the hiring manager was good at his job. First, he made sure I knew he wasn't out to trip me up or have one of those confrontational interviews I'd probably had (and yes, I had). Second, he interviewed me and asked a whole lot of good questions that were actually relevant and meaningful. He didn't pull punches; for example, he noted that he'd seen me around for the past few years a d had noticed that I seemed like a low-energy person (pin-pon!), and asked if I would be able to make it in a high-energy job. (Not being an idiot, of course, I agreed that I was, but that I've proven that I can handle it. Good me.) And finally, he said that I'd know tomorrow morning, which floored me.
And tomorrow morning (well, Thursday the 10th, actually), I found out. Welcome to the team, me! I had, however, to maintain silence about it among coworkers. See, in my current level 6 position, I was so underpaid that the promotion would require a raise beyond the maximum percentage allowed, just to get me to the bottom of the level 7 pay scale. That kind of exception has to go through a vice president of the company for approval, so it was off to play the waiting-for-red-tape game.
It all worked out in the end. I got my offer, promotion and raise, and I'll be moving into that group on the 25th. Till then, I'm still handling the phones--which hasn't stopped some of my new coworkers from handing me projects to get started on already, the deflection of which has been tricky, since I don't want to start off with the impression that I'm a shirker. It's been a rough trip, but I finally got where I've been trying to go all along. Yay!
Beth dragged me outside to pull out tree runners from the front yard today. She's been doing big cleaning, with reluctant assistance from Taper and me, because she wanted to have a friend over to study. However, I thought we were going to let the tree bits grow, so we could incriminate the next door neighbors' landlord for not killing the tree he cut down. Beth, as always, had her reasons.
It turns out that the other next door neighbors are selling their house! This is good news for a number of reasons. First, it means that Ish Kabibble's brother Oz won't be living next door any more, so he won't be so keen to break down or dig under the fence. Second, THEY won't be living there any more! Hurrah! No Jim Darling husband and Too Boring For Oprah White Trash wife! No more living next to the man who housebroke my dog in a single "Can you watch Ish?" weekend, after which Ish yelped and cowered from any movement toward him for a week! No more walking out back in my bathrobe to find the neighbors' four year old son, Colby (yes, The Boy Who Is Cheese), who has removed all the wood and cinder block we put over the holes Ish and Oz dug and decided to go exploring!
But who is to move in? Therein lies the rub, and also the yank of weeds. Beth reasons that anyone looking at buying the house will be looking at the neighborhood. So, to better the class of people who move in, we need to make sure the front of our house is spotless and classy.
Naturally, after hearing this, I jumped in with both hands. Take that, evil undead tree!
One more thing: I'm sick of being diabetic. Our company did well this quarter, and so supervisors were walking around Friday with a cart full of ice cream. I passed. Since then, I've been inundated with various sweets being offered to me, either as presents, on menus, or just sitting in a doughnut shop on the corner looking scrumptious. Ah well, I'll get over it...at least until Halloween.
October 12 was a good day.
WBWolf drove Beth,
Taper and me to Portland to see Spirited Away (Sen To Chihiro No Kamikakushi to Japanese buffs, but I calls 'em like I sees 'em--and I saw this one in English). I'd love to get an opinion of this movie from someone who isn't into anime and doesn't already worship Hayao Miyazaki as a god, because although I was in heaven watching it I did wonder if others might find it somewhat random and disjointed. It might have been, but I didn't mind; it had an Alice In Wonderland flavor to it. I refer to the book, of course, not the Disney schlock.
We stopped at Owajimaya and Kinokuniya on the way up, which is always a bittersweet mixture of being surrounded by wonderful Asianities, desperately wishing I could read Japanese, and perversely wanting to buy a durian. Alas, just the back issues of Kitty Goods Collection magazine alone would set me back a hundred dollars I don't have. At least I got to browse through them; among the highlights were plush figures of Hello Kitty in a Playboy Bunny costume and figures of Hello Kitty superdeformed (as if she weren't enough already). Among the lowlights: a line of products featuring Hello Kitty and Tweety. Flee in terror!
I'm not much of a Sailor Moon fan, but I ended up buying a Sailor Moon World 2003 calendar that was too pretty and pink to pass up. I'm going through one of those phases again. Between that, the new Hello Kitty ballerina plushie, and the Powerpuff Girls pen and highlighter set made to look like nail polish and lipstick respectively, I'm definitely retreating into little girl mode. I think that happens when I'm stressed.
A major source of stress recently has been that the Content Developer position opened at work on September 29, which would be off of the tech support phones and instead writing documents for both support and the general public. I've been trying to get that job since about mid-2000, and I have a long history of rejection. At the same time, an Editor position appeared; this would be non-technical and more language-intensive, which I would also like, and for which I've been turned down as well.
I applied for the Content Developer position somewhat half-assedly, not including a cover letter like the ones I've poured my heart into the previous times I applied. After that, I was talked out of the Editor position by the person who was leaving the group--it turns out that she was sick of spending a third of her day documenting what she had done all day, so I decided to give that one a miss.
The reasons I didn't put much effort into the application were threefold. First, I'd already tried putting effort into it, and it didn't work. Second, I wasn't really all that unhappy with my current job; sure, I was on the phones, but corporate customers are, surprisingly, a lot easier to work with than retail consumers. I thought for sure that I'd be inundated with furious administrators whose million-dollar servers had just been eaten by our software, and indeed those customers are out there, but for the most part the calls are laid-back, overpaid and only mildly stressed admins who have some idea what they're doing.
Mostly, though, I didn't agonize over the application because applications are agony. You have two or three pages on which to account for your life and what you've made of yourself, and between that and an hour's worth of questioning your life's path will be decided. If you're not sure that you're good enough for the job, or just good enough in general, how can you persuade someone else that you are?
Two weeks later, I interviewed for the CD job. I was impressed; the hiring manager was good at his job. First, he made sure I knew he wasn't out to trip me up or have one of those confrontational interviews I'd probably had (and yes, I had). Second, he interviewed me and asked a whole lot of good questions that were actually relevant and meaningful. He didn't pull punches; for example, he noted that he'd seen me around for the past few years a d had noticed that I seemed like a low-energy person (pin-pon!), and asked if I would be able to make it in a high-energy job. (Not being an idiot, of course, I agreed that I was, but that I've proven that I can handle it. Good me.) And finally, he said that I'd know tomorrow morning, which floored me.
And tomorrow morning (well, Thursday the 10th, actually), I found out. Welcome to the team, me! I had, however, to maintain silence about it among coworkers. See, in my current level 6 position, I was so underpaid that the promotion would require a raise beyond the maximum percentage allowed, just to get me to the bottom of the level 7 pay scale. That kind of exception has to go through a vice president of the company for approval, so it was off to play the waiting-for-red-tape game.
It all worked out in the end. I got my offer, promotion and raise, and I'll be moving into that group on the 25th. Till then, I'm still handling the phones--which hasn't stopped some of my new coworkers from handing me projects to get started on already, the deflection of which has been tricky, since I don't want to start off with the impression that I'm a shirker. It's been a rough trip, but I finally got where I've been trying to go all along. Yay!
Beth dragged me outside to pull out tree runners from the front yard today. She's been doing big cleaning, with reluctant assistance from Taper and me, because she wanted to have a friend over to study. However, I thought we were going to let the tree bits grow, so we could incriminate the next door neighbors' landlord for not killing the tree he cut down. Beth, as always, had her reasons.
It turns out that the other next door neighbors are selling their house! This is good news for a number of reasons. First, it means that Ish Kabibble's brother Oz won't be living next door any more, so he won't be so keen to break down or dig under the fence. Second, THEY won't be living there any more! Hurrah! No Jim Darling husband and Too Boring For Oprah White Trash wife! No more living next to the man who housebroke my dog in a single "Can you watch Ish?" weekend, after which Ish yelped and cowered from any movement toward him for a week! No more walking out back in my bathrobe to find the neighbors' four year old son, Colby (yes, The Boy Who Is Cheese), who has removed all the wood and cinder block we put over the holes Ish and Oz dug and decided to go exploring!
But who is to move in? Therein lies the rub, and also the yank of weeds. Beth reasons that anyone looking at buying the house will be looking at the neighborhood. So, to better the class of people who move in, we need to make sure the front of our house is spotless and classy.
Naturally, after hearing this, I jumped in with both hands. Take that, evil undead tree!
One more thing: I'm sick of being diabetic. Our company did well this quarter, and so supervisors were walking around Friday with a cart full of ice cream. I passed. Since then, I've been inundated with various sweets being offered to me, either as presents, on menus, or just sitting in a doughnut shop on the corner looking scrumptious. Ah well, I'll get over it...at least until Halloween.