Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Last Laughs?

In the midst of this paperwork blizzard, not to mention this little thing called "work," as in trying to do it along with everything else... I went back and looked at my job-search records.

Turns out that the very last place I applied to before applying to current-and-soon-to-be-ex employer ("Old Company"), was the very place that is swallowing us up tomorrow ("New Company.") And at that time, they responded to my application with the notification that they were only testing for acute care, thankyouverymuch. According to their website, 5 years of recent acute care experience (5 years! Most places only ask for 2!) is REQUIRED.

Regular readers will recall that acute care is the job description in which I could not even get arrested, until Old Company offered not only to hire me, but to up-train me.

And now New Company has me coming aboard with my --what, less than 3 months of acute care under my belt? Plus they've got my co-worker who was hired the same day I was, right out of school. She too had applied to New Company and was told they did not hire newbies.

There's got to be some kind of irony in this....


Monday, March 30, 2009

At Least I Still Have A Job.

For now, anyway.

Just when I was getting used to my new job, not even 6 months into my employment, my employer is the little fish being swallowed up by a bigger fish. Yep... it's corporate merger time! Effective the day after tomorrow, I will have a new employer.

So having filled out a mess of new-employee paperwork less than 6 months ago... here's another pile to fill out Right Now, Please, and fax in to the main office. And having filled out the health insurance forms less than 3 months ago (and never having actually used that insurance), now here's another batch. Not only that... the new company's benefit enrollment date is July 1--which means they are actively looking at the possibility of other health plans, which means we may change health plans July 1, which would mean yet another stack of paperwork in less than 2 months.

I think I'm getting a headache.

The good news... I still have a job. They have assured us that nothing much is going to change... right away, that is. For now, we will continue to work on our same accounts, on the same software platforms, under our same supervisors, and (whew!) at our previous pay rates.

Not only that... the new company does NOT provide company computers. Thus, this Dell computer that the old company sent me less than 6 months ago (that would be the computer that is faster and less glitchy than my own, thankyouverymuch) is now MINE, unless I leave the company within a fairly short period of time, in which case they would like to have it back to use as a loaner.

And in today's mail there's a $25 VISA gift card and a letter signed by both CEOs, old and new, to help ease the transition. Maybe it'll buy me enough ibuprofen to get through this transition without pulling out what hair I have left.

At least I still have a job.


Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Boomer Radio

Today's major, earth-shattering question.

What in the bleep does "Low Spark Of High-Heeled Boys" mean??

(It's a song by a band called Traffic. Look it up.)


Wednesday, March 18, 2009

A Day Late, And Ten Dollars Short...

... adjusted for inflation, don't chew know.

Just saw this over at Wizbang. There are no words.


Friday, March 13, 2009

Yet Another List

The folks at Mental Floss (am I the only one just a bit disturbed by the name of that site??) offer for our perusal the top 10 annoying behaviors by co-workers.

I've had most, but not all of them, happen to me over the years. (And I am very, very glad I work entirely at home now.)

1. Eating food that others bring in, but never reciprocating.

2. Shouting over cubicles to have a conversation.

3. Standing around someone’s desk and talking so it’s hard for them to get work done.

4. Not putting cell phones on vibrate or silent.

5. Eating smelly food.

6. Borrowing things from a co-worker’s desk without asking or returning the item.

7. Playing solitaire on a PDA during a meeting.

8. Turning your radio on loud enough for everyone to hear.

9. Leaving water on the counter in the bathroom so when the next person washes their hands and leans up against the sink, they get a line of water across their pants.

10. Leaving the office kitchen a mess.

Which ones did NOT happen to me? Somebody playing solitaire on a PDA during a meeting. None of the people I had to go to meetings with even owned a PDA. And the last place I worked in anything vaguely resembling a cube farm, the office manager was right there in the midst, and NOBODY dared shout within the same zip code as her.

And I will add one that DID happen to me, many times: When somebody else took my lunch out of the microwave BEFORE it was done, and put theirs in. Grrr. Never come between a CrankyBeach and her chow at feeding time.


About That Blogroll Thing...

... the good news is, without my having had to do anything at all, the trick that opens each blogroll link in a new window is now working again.

The not-so-good news is that, at least here in La Casa Cranky, every single item in the blogroll has the ! flag that means the blog in question has had new posts since I last read it.

Um, no.

Apparently Blogrolling is still a work in progress.


Sunday, March 8, 2009

Blogroll Updated - At Last!

Blogrolling is FINALLY back up and running. So my blogroll has been updated. The broken and outdated links are gone, and the newer links have been incorporated.

The bad news: Under their new business model, they have gone the way of much of the rest of the internet and incorporated advertising. So now, every time you click on a blog in my blogroll, you will see a narrow advertising bar at the top of the new page.

And somehow, the code which opened each blogroll link in a new window has been overridden by something else.

Oh well. Again, I could sit down and in my ::snort:: copious spare time re-code the whole list manually. Yeah. Right.


Friday, March 6, 2009

And In Other News...

... related to one of the items in the immediately-preceding post, I have just discovered a blog after my own heart: the I Hate Cilantro blog.

Fellow cilantro-haters... we are not alone!


Very Important News Item.

Via the folks at Yahoo! food news, a list of the top 11 foods people either love or hate. And because inquiring minds want to know, I am listing my own preference (or lack thereof) for each item on the list.

What do YOU love or hate?

1. White "Chocolate." Chocolate ain't chocolate unless it's brown, preferably DARK brown.

2. Cilantro. Keep that stuff far, far away from me. Apparently I do not have the cilantro-loving gene.

3. Eggplant. Slimy, stringy, pretty tasteless. What's the point?

4. Coconut. I don't have a problem with it, but I don't generally seek it out.

5. Tomato. Bring it on. Especially if it's home-grown, vine-ripened. Yummy! Where's my salt shaker?

6. Anchovies. Bait. And I am not a fan of fishing. Or fish. Never have been.

7. Black licorice. All the more for me.

8. Stinky cheeses. Ah, the gorgeous gazonga cheese, as Kerry's mother once pronounced it.

9. Mayo. Makes the sandwich slide down easier--but not TOO much.

10. Bell Pepper. Green--mweh. Red--bring 'em on!

11. Beets. When I was assigned garden-watering chores back in adolescence, guess which part of the vegetable patch I always "forgot?"


Monday, March 2, 2009

How The Bleep...

... did THIS get through the Department of Motor Vehicles as a personalized license plate??

No, I did not have the camera handy, so you'll have to trust me on what it said:

HRD AWN

I kid you not. And no, I did not get a look at the person driving the purple pickup truck that wore the plate. But I am reminded of a piece of timeless wisdom, found in a long-ago issue of MAD Magazine, to the effect that those who brag the most about certain things, actually in reality have the least bragging rights, if you know what I mean.


 
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