While I'm waiting for a shared file to stop being a bitch
Two things of note today:
I used Access for the first time. I don't know what the hell I did or what the point of Access is in the first place, since I was just following directions, but I used it. I'm *this* close to having all the skills necessary to be a receptionist. Sweet!
OK, that was sarcasm. Admittedly, I've always been a little annoyed with the fact that after being management for more than half a decade, I couldn't even be hired for a front office job because I started my career on word processors and graduated to AmiPro after going through a DOS prompt. (Yeah, that's right, I'm talking relics here.) Learning Excel and how to mail merge was never a job requirement. (I knew how to change a toner cartridge and unfuck a really big jammed copier, though!) Offense given to my highly skilled and awesome friends who happen to be administrative assistants, receptionists and legal clerks/paralegals is not intended.
Job skills I've picked up in the seven months I've been full-time employed:
-- HTML: I can build a webpage from scratch, if I so choose, and -- after 13 years -- I finally understand the gibberish that showed up when I used to move non-Microsoft-based messages and attachments into Word.
-- Excel: My understanding is rudimentary, but growing.
-- Frontpage: Yes, it's a dead program, but it's a publishing program nonetheless.
-- Outlook: Fucking HATE it, but I'm getting the jist of its navigation.
-- CMS: Use it every day. It's our bread-and-butter.
And now, there's the dabbling in Access and discovering the merging functions. I feel almost hip.
OK, no I don't. I feel like I'm part of the drone army. But at least we're not about to hit any soup lines.
---
I'm curious about the "Twilight" books. I know they're for kids -- girls, rather -- in the vicinity of Stevin's age, but I love me some magic realism (I'm using the term loosely, because I really don't know what the genre is that encompasses fantasy elements but not in made-up settings. Don't think it's fantastic realism either, but I could be wrong. Damn wikipedia not sharing my brain today) -- vampire sagas with historical elements in particular -- and since the HP phenom made it acceptable for us old fogeys to delve into the juniors genre, I wouldn't mind getting my hands on them. Who knows? They may actually read quickly and I could get through another book again. I haven't picked up "Love in the Western World" in weeks. Not that my 24-days-and-a-wakeup leaves me any time for literary pleasures.
Of course, last year when "Blood Ties" was a short-lived series on Lifetime, I also wiki'd the hell out of Tanya Huff's book series. Couldn't bring myself much closer to reading the stuff, though, since it sounded a little too drugstore paperback for my taste. Same for "The Dresden Files." I feel weird enough knowing there are awards called Nebulas and Hugos, let alone being familiar with anyone who's been in the running for or won them. Not that Huff or Jim Butcher, the Dresden author, would fit in those categories, but I tend to lump the whole modern fantasy/sci fi gambit -- with notable exceptions like Anne Rice before she turned Jesus freak -- together in the great big heap. (I'm just all about the stereotyping today.)
The fact I've read Douglas Adam's entire body of work? Joey's fault!
Have every intention of someday reading Piers Anthony's Incarnations of Immortality series? Doug's to blame!
Still trying to get my hands on hardbound copies of the rest of Marion Zimmer Bradley's Avalon series? Fluke, born of the fascination with medieval lit.
Fell madly in love with Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next books? Well, dooood, who wouldn't, with all that classic lit mooshing together so nicely?
OK, I might protest a wee too much.
I used Access for the first time. I don't know what the hell I did or what the point of Access is in the first place, since I was just following directions, but I used it. I'm *this* close to having all the skills necessary to be a receptionist. Sweet!
OK, that was sarcasm. Admittedly, I've always been a little annoyed with the fact that after being management for more than half a decade, I couldn't even be hired for a front office job because I started my career on word processors and graduated to AmiPro after going through a DOS prompt. (Yeah, that's right, I'm talking relics here.) Learning Excel and how to mail merge was never a job requirement. (I knew how to change a toner cartridge and unfuck a really big jammed copier, though!) Offense given to my highly skilled and awesome friends who happen to be administrative assistants, receptionists and legal clerks/paralegals is not intended.
Job skills I've picked up in the seven months I've been full-time employed:
-- HTML: I can build a webpage from scratch, if I so choose, and -- after 13 years -- I finally understand the gibberish that showed up when I used to move non-Microsoft-based messages and attachments into Word.
-- Excel: My understanding is rudimentary, but growing.
-- Frontpage: Yes, it's a dead program, but it's a publishing program nonetheless.
-- Outlook: Fucking HATE it, but I'm getting the jist of its navigation.
-- CMS: Use it every day. It's our bread-and-butter.
And now, there's the dabbling in Access and discovering the merging functions. I feel almost hip.
OK, no I don't. I feel like I'm part of the drone army. But at least we're not about to hit any soup lines.
---
I'm curious about the "Twilight" books. I know they're for kids -- girls, rather -- in the vicinity of Stevin's age, but I love me some magic realism (I'm using the term loosely, because I really don't know what the genre is that encompasses fantasy elements but not in made-up settings. Don't think it's fantastic realism either, but I could be wrong. Damn wikipedia not sharing my brain today) -- vampire sagas with historical elements in particular -- and since the HP phenom made it acceptable for us old fogeys to delve into the juniors genre, I wouldn't mind getting my hands on them. Who knows? They may actually read quickly and I could get through another book again. I haven't picked up "Love in the Western World" in weeks. Not that my 24-days-and-a-wakeup leaves me any time for literary pleasures.
Of course, last year when "Blood Ties" was a short-lived series on Lifetime, I also wiki'd the hell out of Tanya Huff's book series. Couldn't bring myself much closer to reading the stuff, though, since it sounded a little too drugstore paperback for my taste. Same for "The Dresden Files." I feel weird enough knowing there are awards called Nebulas and Hugos, let alone being familiar with anyone who's been in the running for or won them. Not that Huff or Jim Butcher, the Dresden author, would fit in those categories, but I tend to lump the whole modern fantasy/sci fi gambit -- with notable exceptions like Anne Rice before she turned Jesus freak -- together in the great big heap. (I'm just all about the stereotyping today.)
The fact I've read Douglas Adam's entire body of work? Joey's fault!
Have every intention of someday reading Piers Anthony's Incarnations of Immortality series? Doug's to blame!
Still trying to get my hands on hardbound copies of the rest of Marion Zimmer Bradley's Avalon series? Fluke, born of the fascination with medieval lit.
Fell madly in love with Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next books? Well, dooood, who wouldn't, with all that classic lit mooshing together so nicely?
OK, I might protest a wee too much.