What you did today

[Rosbjerg]

8 digits. That was my first assumption too (and one of the reasons it took longer to solve)

[Nepenthe]

So, when I started here I replaced a guy who was fired for incompetence. Meaning, I got about 50 cases that had been more or less ****ed up by him, his old computer, his old phone, hid old office etc. 2 months after me we had a new guy (older than me, but a recent law school graduate) get hired, who, since he was an "expansion" got everything new. Including cases. I grinned and took it if not like a man then at least not like a whiny bitch because I could see the logic in it, even if I'm even at the moment hunched over a desk originally designed for a 5' girl (who, I'd like to clarify, wasn't the idiot fired before me).

 

Our managing partner's going into semiretirement in the end of the year, so I was just told that they're reshuffling the offices. Former junior partner takes of the managing partner's office, new guy gets former junior partner's office and boss takes of the new guy's smaller office. Again, a perfectly rational reason that results in the minimum amount of moving people around but also gives new guy a superb office with all the bells and whistles.

 

The worst part is that I can't really say anything because all of these things alone are fairly minor, but having worked contracts before I've become fairly saturated with being treated as a liquid asset. Now it looks like they're courting this guy to become a partner down the road while they expect me to bugger off to a bigger city at the first opportunity. Which has, with the treatment, become a self-fulfilling prophecy. *grumble*

[Walsingham]

So a girl gave me an encrypted message that looked like this (I changed some of the code, but it's still solvable) .. and said if I could crack it I'd know how to get in contact with her... Took me a little longer than I'm proud to admit to crack..

 

A  9  A  A

B  2  H  I

K C  O  L

2  B  T  D

0  H  M  K

 

Clever girl...

 

It translates as 'I don't date bald nerds'? ;p

[Rosbjerg]

Probably a little actually, but also a sort of second chance I reckon.. But I'm meeting her tomorrow, so I think I passed her little test.

[LadyCrimson]

Got ticked off at Steam's software + update demands + installer when it gave me can't connect errors (hadn't been "online' in 2 months...). Took me 2 hours to figure that one out (at least I didn't have to reinstall games...) and then I didn't feel like playing the game anymore.

 

It's been a pleasant weekend overall, however. Some gaming, some out and about-ing, some family. All nice and relaxing. Except when my cat gallops around the house knocking things over during some fur-shedding, yowling dervish mode. The animal shelter lady said "they're 6ish, don't expect them to be too active, cause older cats don't do kitten-y things." ... Mr. Black says "haha you're wrong."

[LadyCrimson]

Double-posting, different subject:

 

We are apparently late, underestimated, or whatever, on paying $49 on part of our last self-employment Federal Tax payment. So they sent us another bill, of course. For $115. Penalty and interest. For a month. This is why, in the US, you do not mess with the IRS. I remember one time, for almost a year, they kept saying we owed them more, and we'd pay it, and they'd come back a month later and say we owed them more + interest that we couldn't avoid since we'd only know about owing it when they sent the bill....IRS is the devil, that is all.

[Nepenthe]

So, when I started here I replaced a guy who was fired for incompetence. Meaning, I got about 50 cases that had been more or less ****ed up by him, his old computer, his old phone, hid old office etc. 2 months after me we had a new guy (older than me, but a recent law school graduate) get hired, who, since he was an "expansion" got everything new. Including cases. I grinned and took it if not like a man then at least not like a whiny bitch because I could see the logic in it, even if I'm even at the moment hunched over a desk originally designed for a 5' girl (who, I'd like to clarify, wasn't the idiot fired before me).

 

Our managing partner's going into semiretirement in the end of the year, so I was just told that they're reshuffling the offices. Former junior partner takes of the managing partner's office, new guy gets former junior partner's office and boss takes of the new guy's smaller office. Again, a perfectly rational reason that results in the minimum amount of moving people around but also gives new guy a superb office with all the bells and whistles.

 

The worst part is that I can't really say anything because all of these things alone are fairly minor, but having worked contracts before I've become fairly saturated with being treated as a liquid asset. Now it looks like they're courting this guy to become a partner down the road while they expect me to bugger off to a bigger city at the first opportunity. Which has, with the treatment, become a self-fulfilling prophecy. *grumble*

 

Turns out this hadn't been widely discussed, came as a surprise to most people involved and was generally viewed as being in poor taste by them. Hmpf, office politics. And having a damn long back.

[Rosbjerg]

So you took it up with the partners?

[Monte Carlo]

Who would have guessed that Lawyers behave like snakes in their offices too?

[Nepenthe]

So you took it up with the partners?

 

No(t yet). Again, as it becomes less and less likely that I'll be here at this time next year, I understand their thinking in wanting to essentially bribe the other guy to maintain continuity. I just wish they'd do it with less urinating in my cereals, to paraphrase a Finnish saying.

 

But yeah, actually the guy who's the target of the propelling had taken it up with them, and the current junior partner (who's going to own the majority share from January 1st) hadn't heard about it either. This is actually still a massive step forward over my last place of employment. The real tragedy with lawyers is that generally the ones who wind up in leadership positions are there because of their personal success in, well, lawyering. Having any sort of rudimentary management training, never mind measured capacity for it, never comes up. In fact, my minor in management and leadership studies has probably been a hindrance to me so far, since people seem to assume that it would make someone ****y (to me, it was mostly humbling, starting to understand the complexities of group psychology at workplace etc.).

 

p.s. I'm still happier working here than wherever you are, Monte

Edited October 7, 2013 by Nepenthe

[Walsingham]

 

So, when I started here I replaced a guy who was fired for incompetence. Meaning, I got about 50 cases that had been more or less ****ed up by him, his old computer, his old phone, hid old office etc. 2 months after me we had a new guy (older than me, but a recent law school graduate) get hired, who, since he was an "expansion" got everything new. Including cases. I grinned and took it if not like a man then at least not like a whiny bitch because I could see the logic in it, even if I'm even at the moment hunched over a desk originally designed for a 5' girl (who, I'd like to clarify, wasn't the idiot fired before me).

 

Our managing partner's going into semiretirement in the end of the year, so I was just told that they're reshuffling the offices. Former junior partner takes of the managing partner's office, new guy gets former junior partner's office and boss takes of the new guy's smaller office. Again, a perfectly rational reason that results in the minimum amount of moving people around but also gives new guy a superb office with all the bells and whistles.

 

The worst part is that I can't really say anything because all of these things alone are fairly minor, but having worked contracts before I've become fairly saturated with being treated as a liquid asset. Now it looks like they're courting this guy to become a partner down the road while they expect me to bugger off to a bigger city at the first opportunity. Which has, with the treatment, become a self-fulfilling prophecy. *grumble*

 

Turns out this hadn't been widely discussed, came as a surprise to most people involved and was generally viewed as being in poor taste by them. Hmpf, office politics. And having a damn long back.

 

 

And yet again, by fearing disloyalty they guarantee it.

[Amentep]

Weird Dream:

 

I leave a classroom in a futuristic school, travel down several corridors (white walls with a blue light strip along the middle) to my next class. I pass a bunch of students who I don't really know. Once I get to class I don't really recognize anyone else, but its the start of the term so I don't think much of it. I sit at my desk and listen to the teacher for awhile when I start feeling sick; I get up and make a right as down the hallway a short distance on the left is the bathroom.

 

I enter only to find the bathroom has been re-modeled so that it is a student lounge with toilet stalls ringing the walls. This strikes me as strange as who wants to study under such environments? I look at one of the nearby stalls and realize that while they look like classic bathroom stalls, they're actually high tech cubicles with an energy field on them - no sounds or smells emanate. Even the stall image is a simulation. Inside, they have a sink, a mirror and a toilet in each one. I start to look around at the rest of the room and notice a coffee bar amid all of the study tables when...

 

I wake up in my apartment room. I slide out of my large double bed. Enough light comes in from under the door where I can make out my wooden dresser near the door. I get up and leave my bedroom. It is situated at the end of a long hall. Light from the city is coming in, as I'm on a top floor apartment. A little light is coming in to the room at the opposite end of the hallway, enough to spot some dining room furniture. I think a bit about how the dining room at the end of the hall leads around to opens into a larger room on the other side of the hallway wall. The configuration always struck me as a little odd, but the apartment's price was right. I dart into the bathroom and use the facilities, then go back to bed and fall asleep.

 

Back in the futuristic school's study room / bathroom combo, I no longer feel sick, so I decide to go back to class, but exit the wrong side and end up in the wrong part of the building. After trying to get back to my part of the building, but being overwhelmed by a mass of students and an unfamiliar environment, I accidentally go through a door that puts me on the outside of the school. We're in an ice cave and the school is attached to a giant machine that takes it to the surface or deep underground. An alarm signals and I realize they're taking the school to the surface and I'm outside and I start screaming and pounding on the door to get back in...

 

I wake up in my apartment room, small and full of junk. My mattress rests on the floor and I use a nearby bookshelf to pull myself up. I wasn't thinking when I do so as the shelf was broken and I knock over several books. The nightmare I'd had had shook me and as I exit my bedroom I'm stumped on why I was afraid of the surface. What could have been up there? I stand in the darkened hall outside of my bedroom. To the left at the end of the hall is a room I can't see anything in. To the right is the bathroom. Straight ahead is a room with a little light in the windows but not enough to make anything out but just enough to see the general outline of where I am going in the hallway. I go into the bathroom and splash some water on my face to try and recover from the nightmare.

 

When I leave the bathroom, the door to the room opposite mine has been partially closed and a light turned on. I start to push open the door - what I can see is the room has been trashed - junk and debris scattered everywhere. Graffiti is everywhere but on one wall something is written, large and prominent. Before I read it, I notice a nameplate on the door holding a hand written card. The card has a series of names on it, mine included. I can't figure out why my name is on this door when my room is across from it. At that point I become scared and start backing away from the door towards the bathroom trying my best not to read what is written on the wall as the door swings further open...

 

When I wake up I'm in my nice spacious bedroom. I scoot to the edge of my bed and stare at the wooden dresser for a moment. I get back up, two nightmares back to back have shaken me, and open the door. The hallway is still well lit from city lights but I wished the dining room beyond wasn't so shadowy. I entered the bathroom and get a cup of water. I realize I picked up my toothbrush absentmindedly when I got the water and put it back. I look at my face in the mirrors - instead of one mirror there are several small and midsized ones giving different angles.

 

I realize immediately the face isn't mine, and yet it is too; as I move and make faces it follows suit, when I raise my hands to my face the mirror image follows suit. It must be my face. I think the weird dreams have gotten me all out of sorts and figure I'll laugh about it when I get up in the morning. I leave the bathroom, glance back towards that dark room at the end of the hallway before heading back to bed and drifting to sleep.

 

Where I wake up a few minutes before my alarm goes off in my real bedroom in my house. If I wake up again, I probably won't be posting about that here, I'm afraid.

[Malcador]

People are loyal to their employers ?

[Walsingham]

People are loyal to their employers ?

 

Your job is both a source of security, and it shapes who you are. If you can't believe in what you're doing, if you can't trust your employers not to shaft you for pennies, then what's the ****ing point? You're just playing a very boring kind of Russian roulette.

[Malcador]

Well, the point is the pay cheque I get monthly. Pretty sure any employer I have or will have will pull an Initech and cut people just to save $1.50, just the way things are.

[Walsingham]

I'm not trying to have a go at you. Maybe you don't have any options. But you need to find a better place to work. You'd be a lot happier.

[Calax]

I'm about ready to either punch somebody or just stop trying to live beyond the essentials. I've just gotten done with a four day stint where I worked for about 30 hours overall (maybe more). Lucrative yes, but between that, and the fact that we'd gone out dancing on friday (and my add got kicked into high gear by being overwhelmed by the noises) I'm a zombie. Went to class this morning, then tried to go see student legal aid but got asked to come back two hours later. Then when I check my email my group that's been procrastinating has decided that three hours after my appointment with the Lawyer, they wanna meet to finally work on this project/debate.

 

I'm trying to get them to do it earlier so I actually have some time to be at home and sack out today, but I somehow doubt I'm gonna ever be able to go home and have a stretch of 5 hours alone between the hours of 8 AM in the morning and 8 pm at night until my mind breaks into little itty bitty pieces and I'm left in an acute psych ward to pull myself together

 

Again.

[Gfted1]

You think that's bad, just wait till "the man" expects you to work at least 8 hours per day.

[Walsingham]

You think that's bad, just wait till "the man" expects you to work at least 8 hours per day.

 

It is a matter of eternal surprise to me how little actual work office 9-5'ers actually get done. Blue collar - ****loads. White collar - **** all.

[Gfted1]

*highfives*

[Gorgon]

That reminds me. I'm supposed to look like I'm working furiously in case the higher ups happen by. 

[Malcador]

It is a matter of eternal surprise to me how little actual work office 9-5'ers actually get done. Blue collar - ****loads. White collar - **** all.

Hey, I'll have you know I get most of my forum posting done during those hoyrs. Different nature to work, though, something to be said for tangible work rather than stuff like advancing some Scrum project or making someone bitch less.

[Calax]

You think that's bad, just wait till "the man" expects you to work at least 8 hours per day.

Except that I am. I'm saying I am working that much, but I'm not even allowed weekends to recoup.

[Raithe]

That can be a thing with IT support. Half the time you spend pretty much dossing around, keeping an eye in general on things, maybe reading up on the latest tech worries.. But what you're really being paid for is that 10 minutes when everything goes **** up and you have the stress and worry of getting it working again rapdio.

[JFSOCC]

So Rosbjerg, email addresses are today's phone numbers.