So y'all know Doug got his new job. Today he went to work and they informed him at his current job that they wouldn't be renewing his contract for next year.
Essentially, they fired him.
I won't discuss any of the details, this is not his blog -- and I'm sure he wouldn't like it, suffice it to say that it must have felt alright on his part to say "oh, that's fine then (asshats) I have another job to go to, so I was gonna resign and leave you (fucktards) behind anyway."
Go ahead.
Say it in a sentence.
You know you want to -- there. Didn't you like it? Isn't it hard to say without laughing? I know I found myself in hysterics just READING the word.
Anyway -- back to the topic at hand. You know how I can digress. Everything happens for a reason.
I'd asked Doug the other night when he intended to give his notice. He said he'd wait a few days, but they beat him to the punch. So he gave. He's done -- he'll finish out the academic year and use up his one remaining personal day between now and June 12th or 13th when the actual last day is. He'll depart from there as the consummate professional that I know he is. And to be honest -- it's their loss all told. Whether or not he had another job to go to, Doug is a rock star there at the school and the kids love his big self, and I'm sure there will be some sad and confused children next fall. And God help them in this academic and special ed climate in the state of Massachusetts these days.
But we'll be rich by then. And the children? We've thought of them. We've got two to think of and we'll play go fish with them instead of Doug playing with other peoples' kids.
Doug bought beer. We'll drink heavily tonight and read all the benefits and contract info for his new job. And we'll have fun.
The monkey references continue - but Wednesday was a cheat. I got the email on Thursday informing me that the blog "Buy the Monkey" existed. Special props and mad shouts go to Stacey-Ann. Nothin' but love over to you girl. Go visit both of them. Stacey's got a new puppy. Go visit -- it looks like she's hanging up her blogging hat until further notice.
God knows I'll miss her. I wish her the best.
Another aortal link has proven to be a fabulous find. Andi agrees with me that Avril Levigne is the lamest. And she writes of recent news that her Sk8r Boi song will be made into a film.
Gag. Barf.
So I join in with Andi at the Worst Weblog Ever in insisting that "Avril Must Be Stopped." We'll make web banners and maybe stickers that you can slap on toll both bucket change flaps. Andi also loves the Schlimpsons and BNL. So in addition to being cosmically or cyberly related to Stacey-Ann, I know Andi is my soul sister.
Rock and Punk On.
Work Related Anecdote
I know I said I wouldn't write about work but damn, this is funny. So in advance I request forgiveness for including this here should my lovely co-workers find this journal and like be reading it. It is well worth including here, and I doubt A would mind.
Yesterday was a frustrating day.
Aside from my not knowing what the hell synching payroll to Ben X means, (remember Ben X? Who is he and why is he a pain in the ass?) aside from not having a clue about it, it wasn't working. Whatever it was. Eventually I understood what we were trying to do, but why it wasn't working was beyond us all, A, me, and the payroll goddess.
A and I spent a frustrating half hour doing something that should have taken oh, 10 minutes.
And finally, the burden of the task and the necessity of it working correctly weighing on us, she decides we need to call ADP tech support. So we do, and I start dialing their toll free client services number, telling her I want her to do the talking. She skoots over to the speaker phone and I position myself to and drive and do whatever the hell the tech support person on the other end instructs us to do.
The phone is answered, and mind you the names are changed to protect the innocent:
"Hello, this is Matthew," a heavily accented voice answers.
A and I look at each other and groan. There is a guy who works for ADP, the guy who cannot give a yes or no answer when we ask him a question, and we think this is yet another ADP rocket scientist and that we're in tech support hell.
"Hi, Matthew," begins the lovely and very frustrated A on my left side, "This is A at Blah bla company. We're trying to synch our benefits deductions with payroll and we're getting a lot of error messages and it's not working and we are calling hoping you can walk us through the process and help us figure out what we're doing wrong."
"Uh," Matthew replies hesitantly, "um, can you call back tomorrow when a manager can help you?"
A and I look at one another, aghast. We are paying SHITloads of money for ADP service and this guy wants us to call tomorrow!
"What?" A stammers.
"Tomorrow if you call back, there will be someone here who can help you. There is no one here who is a manager."
A is pissed and I'm afraid she's going to lose it. We've been rather unhappy with ADP's client services as of late, and I'm so sure she's going to become Mussolini from the balcony on this guy.
"Why do I need a manager?" she begins, and then is on the verge of going off on this poor guy's ass. Matthew confesses that he doesn't work there and probably shouldn't have answered the phone. A and I look at each other I say "Uh, Matthew, where exactly are we calling?"
It was a car dealership. I dialed the wrong mother fucking number.
A and I start laughing. I confess to Matthew that we have a wrong number, he sounds relieved, we hang up and A and I fall down and pee our pants, tears rolling out of our eye sockets, laughing.
She calls me an Asshat and a Fucktard (not really, but the name calling and arm smacking abounded). She basically gives me a ration of shit for my mad and successful phone dialing skills.
I grab the phone list and realize that I used the wrong toll-free prefix. 800, 877, 888, who the hell cares. I dial the phone slowly and carefully this time, speaking each number as I press the corresponding button and drooling like a fucktard the whole time, much to A's joy and entertainment.
By the time we had an ADP client services person on the phone, A's anger was diffused, and we had a great conversation with the very non-excited to be talking to us person at the other end of the phone.
Funny thing is, had A gotten a real ADP human on the phone on the first phone call, she probably would have Drano'ed the person's ears out with an angry and well deserved tirade against this product, the situation, and the support or lack thereof. We found out that the payroll goddess has been getting these same errors for MONTHS and has been faxing their office and getting no response from them. She probably should have like followed up or some shit, or told A, or something...The whole situation was messy and stupid, and as much as we feel we're making great strides we get the feeling that the people on the other end of the phone that we're paying lots of money to are slack-jawed yokels in a barn office sitting on hay bales and scratching their asses with pitchforks. And they're a big company too, ADP. Why this is happening is beyond me.
Watch a shitload of people do a google search on ADP payroll and find this page. Boy. What a client testimonial this is!
Needless to say -- everything happens for a reason. A's pent up rage was diffused by me being stupid. God protected ADP from her kicking their asses, through my fat fingers. I love it.
There's a whole bunch of stuff I've wanted to write about.
First of all -- congrats to Tess and the Manfriend. It looks like "IT" is official. He asked her, she said yes, and the minute her plane lands after her whirlwind tour of the Eastern States she's grabbing him by the nostril and dragging his ass to a JP to get'm hitched.
You
Go
Girl.
Secondly -- Tess is coming to visit and I'm all like giddy as a school girl. I chatted with Amy about the All About Buford show that I'm going to host at our church hall in honor of the Tessmeister, and I think I'm going to invest in some cool wall hangings (indian tapestries) and pull some lamps out of the church basement so we can turn the lights down low, and, we're going to put up a disco ball over the band's head so they can rock disco-ball style. It will be the concert of the century, man. I'm so excited. I feel like I'm back in the old coffeehouse management days when I used to put shows on and introduce bands and shit. I could grow to like this once again and if I weren't so confirmedly lazy I'd do it all the time.
Thirdly -- the other night I bought the Red Hot Chili Peppers' "By the Way." Not because I wanted it, but because GEOFF wanted it. There are two songs that he loves (the title track and "Can't Stop") on this thing, and another that I love ("Dosed") and a radio hit, so about 1/3 of the CD was stuff I was familiar with in the first place. The rest of the CD is okay. I find I like RHCP when they are funky and rocking out, and I enjoy them less when they do ballads. Just my opinion.
Fourthly -- while on the subject of music, I have refrained about mentioning here that I really do not care at all for the Johnny Cash cover of Nine Inch Nails' "Hurt." The whole entire universe seems to be all ga-ga over this song. He's number 1 on CMT's countdown (gah! I typed cuntdown. I am glad I caught that instead of being shocked and spitting my beer out across my PC screen when spellcheck caught it) and everyone from BNL's blog to MTV are talking about how GREAT this is.
I think it's lame and rather pedestrian.
It doesn't do anything for me. Am I the only one?
Him singing the song simply does not convey the same amount of angst and pain as Mr. Reznor does when he sings it. And the video -- parts of it are amazing (him at the table of fine food, pouring the good wine all out over everything with his ancient shakey hand) but mostly the images don't fit at all with with a man who wears a crown of shit upon his liars chair (changed to "crown of thorns" for Mr. Cash's version). He never was abandoned by JCC, and it seems to me that the whole thing just doesn't fit.
Best parts of the video though are her standing behind him and watching him as he cries. Chilling. She's gone now -- she was an amazing vocalist and one of the first women I remember hearing aside from Grace Slick, Judy Collins, Joni Mitchell or Tammy Wynette. I suppose that a lot of the buzz surrounding the song is due to her death as well. He's seen some rough times, but on the country music scale of rough times I'd have to say a Waylon Jennings cover of this song would have made more sense.
I'm lost. I must be the only American who has honestly sat down, soaked it in, thought about it and am still completely unphased by the "genius" of this performance.
I think if I'd never heard the NIN version before, perhaps this would blow me away. So most of Nashville and perhaps most of the people in areas where their choices for airwave entertainment are Froggy Radio and Hip Hop, limited choices to be sure, would never have heard "Hurt" performed in its original state.
I prefer the NIN version so much more. The way Trent goes from whispering "what have I become..." to "YOU CAN HAVE IT ALL! MY EMPIRE OF DIRT!" Oh, it's amazingly powerful to me. Mr. Cash is great and all... but... meh.
I grew up with Johnny Cash. I don't think I ever totally understood the mass appeal to the point of him being "legend." To me, Buck Owens is far more a "legend," but what do I know.
I remember thinking "My Name is Sue" was a hysterical song when I was growing up. My dad would sing it and I'd laugh my ass off. "Ring of Fire" is a fucking fabulous song, and the "I Walk The Line" always did it for me. Aside from that. Meh.
And Finally, Bob Hope is 100. I have nothing enlightening or sassy to say about that. I've never been a big Bob Hope fan... I think by the time I was aware of him his comedy was "Old People Comedy" and I was more into Monty Python (Hello Mrs. Gorilla. Hello Mrs. Non-Gorilla. Been shopping? No. I've been shopping) and I never cared for golf. So all I can say is "good for you, Bob Hope." Perhaps he'll see 101 and we'll be all atwitter about him again this time next year.
Great googly moogly, this is a longassed entry. I'm sorry. I should have made like three. Oh well, if you made it this far, have a great weekend.
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