Category: work

Am I Missing The Point?

So here at the new place of employ, we have a very nice building to work in. It’s an old warehouse in a now gentrified former industrial district that has been updated with all the conveniences of a modern office.

It’s a pretty nice place to work and probably the nicest of all the buildings my employer leases or rents for us minions.

For the 150 or so people located in this building we have a pretty nice break room that includes fancy steel microwaves, up to the minute toaster oven and even a dishwasher.

And then there is the “coffee system.”

Yes, I said system.

In lieu of a good old glass pot of coffee burning on a hotplate all day, we have two Keurig devices. These devices utilize what are called “K cups” for the brewing of single cups of coffee.

My company only provides the machines and the water. Employees have to bring their own K cups.

My coworkers seem very whipped up and excited about K cup coffee and tea. In order to play along, I went to Safeway and invested in two boxes of (highly overpriced) K cups, one box of coffee, one box of chai tea.

This Keurig machine seems all very futuristic. You put in the plastic K cup, clamp the machine down and press “brew”. The machine whirs quietly and makes important beeping noises then it creates your warm mug of beverage.

Only…couldn’t I just dump the contents of the K cup into a mug, add hot water, stir and have the same results?

That’s when I realized these Keurig people are a bunch of really smart and somewhat evil entrepreneurs. They have employed the Hewlett Packard home printer model to coffee.

The Hewlett Packard model is thus…charge $100 for a small personal printer. Then charge $70 for the ink cartridges to use with the printer. They make a couple bucks off the machine, they make a LOT of bucks off of what they call “consumables” (i.e. something that gets used up and needs to be replaced).

Keurig has done this brilliantly. They have made the end user experience feel special with blue lights and soft whirs and beeps. They make you want to run to that machine and slap in a K cup that runs about a dollar to a dollar fifty each. Starbucks and Bed Bath and Beyond are in on the scam, selling their own versions of K cups.

Meanwhile I’m thinking this is just instant coffee all tarted up in a new way. What really boggles me is the people who “loooove” (<- direct quote) the green tea K cups. Because, ahem, dunking a tea bag in a cup of hot water is just too much work? The name Keurig led me to believe this was a european company (the name is the Dutch word for excellence) and I was going to make some comment about the Euros having one over on us Americans. Then I looked up the company and discovered they are from Massachusetts. That there is some Yankee ingenuity. You brilliant b*stards. I know I'm being hornswaggled and yet I play along anyway. Well done Keurig-onians. Well done.








Image from theburr. Click the link to see how to recycle K cups.




Functional. Alien. Beautiful.

My new commute is bringing me lots of new things to look at and new sights I’ve either not seen before or haven’t seen in a real long time.

I’m starting to figure out which side of the train to sit on to take in some of the coolest views on the journey.

One of my favorite parts of the ride is emerging from the tunnel on the Oakland side. Now, Oakland gets such a bad rap, but I find much of Oakland quite beautiful. (No city is 100% beautiful)

In fact, going home each night, I love to sit on the left side of BART so I can take in some gorgeous sunsets over the Port of Oakland.

Here is a photo I snapped with my iPhone from a moving train:




Image Copyright 2013, Karen Fayeth, and subject to the Creative Commons license in the right column of this page.



I love this photo. What you are seeing here are the shipping container cranes at the Oakland docks. Often compared to At-Ats, I think these are some of the most fascinating machinery I’ve ever seen.

I recall when the first of these cranes were purchased several years ago. They came in on a ship from Asia and were so huge, there was much worry about bringing them in under the both the Golden Gate Bridge and Bay Bridge. One big wave swell would have spelled millions in damages. They made it through safely and now many more have come to take their place, revolutionizing how Oakland moves cargo.

This is how you get your stuff, man! Pretty cool.

These cranes make fast work of unloading big metal boxes of goods from the incoming freighter ships. Every morning through the BART windows I see eighteen wheelers lined up ready to get their payload so they can haul it off to the four corners of the state and country.

The Port of Oakland is the fourth busiest container port in the U.S. Their efficiency is amazing.

And those big beautiful industrial pieces of equipment are fascinating. When silhouetted against the setting sun they are so alien and yes, so incredibly gorgeous.

They are modern and very functional art.




What You Don’t See

Look at this photo. Gaze upon it. Let it wash over you.

Kind of cool, no? This is Interstate 280 headed northbound at about 7:15 this morning.

The rain hadn’t really started yet, but it was enough to make a really, really cool (and very bright) rainbow that looked like it was landing right in the middle of the roadway.





Now look at the photo again, this time turn your eyes to the roadway. Hmm, seems like light traffic. A few cars and me going up that incline.

What you don’t see…

Is all of the cars pulled up to a stop on just the other side of that rise.

Because apparently a pretty rainbow is enough for all of us dumb commuters to stomp the brakes and gawk like a herd of mouth breathers.

I was driving regular speed and almost rear ended another car, I really did. I had to slam to a stop because my fellow commuters were all “wooow, maaahn.”

Decorum prevents me from using the language here that I shouted in my car this morning.

The human race, doing idiotic things since the days of primordial ooze.

Which got me to thinking as I continued on my commute (driving to work gives me lots of time to think)…if we, the human race, are the top of the food chain and then in theory, the smartest of all species, then the outlook for the rest of the universe a little shaky.

But woooow, maaaahn.

—–

If you read this post earlier in the day, prior to 5pm Pacific time, you happened to read the first draft. I was running a bit late for a meeting and instead of hitting save as draft I hit publish. Which is kind of funny, considering the content of this post. I, too, am not the smartest homo sapien on the planet. But I didn’t mash on my brakes for a rainbow, so I have that going for me.




Photo Copyright 2012, Karen Fayeth, and subject to the Creative Commons license found in the right column of this page. Taken with an iPhone5 and the Camera+ app.




A Treatise On Monday

Written this morning at something like 5:45am


And so we find ourselves back at Monday. Ah Monday, both the beginning and the end.

I have sad, tired, squinting, groundhog eyes as the alarm goes off. I’m begging the world not to pull me from my burrow. Please don’t shine that bright light in my face.

But I’m pulled from my burrow anyway and instead of a prediction the world anticipates my arrival at the train station and my seat on the next ride into the city.

The bright light turns out to be a beautiful ray of light, glimmering off the slowly rising sun.

All possibility is in Monday. Will this be a good week? Will this be a bad week? Will it rain?

Monday is everything and nothing. A blank canvas ready to take the paint.

What will I make of my Monday? What will I achieve? How will I stumble and will I recover gracefully?

It all exists here in these quiet pre-dawn hours. The sun hasn’t even said hello yet and here I am, writing. Scribbling the words that want to exit my head.

There is already acrylic paint on my hands from a project that is due Thursday morning. I had to get some early painting done so I can hit that deadline.

In this Monday, all things are possible including finishing a painting that is due in just three days.

Oh my.

I feel strangely happy today. What the hell is this? How unusual for a Monday morning.

The weekend was weird. I was cranky and then he was cranky and then it was Sunday night and another two days of not working were jettisoned to the ether. Monday turned the corner and sat down for a visit.

So here I am again loading a backpack for work, stumbling around to find my badge and my phone and my sense of self-worth.

I look again at my canvas and already I fear I have screwed it up. Don’t they say in art there are no mistakes? Just roll with it and incorporate the error. OCD and art are not friends. This major but fixable error must wait until later tonight to find its cloak.

There is a train to catch and a Monday to face. I’d rather stay home in my studio and put gorgeous turquoise paint on a willing canvas. Can I do that for a living?

You know, a girl can dream, and so I will dream as BART gently sways. When I disembark dreams stop so reality can start.

But no matter, I can dream again, later. Dreams don’t die easy.

And dreams don’t wait for the weekend.









Image from The Miracle Journal.




Doeth I Offend?

Today, the next in my continuing series of Life on the Rails.

So this morning I found myself again at my local BART station. I was there earlier than usual as I had an early meeting at work.

Instead of my usual way, way too early departure time, this was “who the hell are you kidding with this darkness” kind of early.

I am NOT a morning person. Back in college, my best friend used to say, “Can you hear that shush-shush-shush behind me? That’s because I’m dragging ass.”

Yeah, it was that kind of morning.

So I dragged my tired legs up the stairs and through the ticket gates and back down the stairs to the platform and a reasonably sane looking guy (I say “reasonably sane” because sanity is all relative on public transportation) said to me, “Does this train go to San Francisco?” and I said yes.

He nodded and we stepped onto the train. I sat, he sat and we found ourselves facing each other. No matter, BART likes to play it fast and loose with the direction of the seats.

So we started rolling. Off we go. I got out my phone to listen to music and a book. I’m currently trying to read “Great Gatsby” again and making a poor go of it. I remember really liking it the last time I read it. Which would be high school. Anyhoo…

As the train not-so-gently rocked out of the station, I saw the reasonably sane guy eyeing me real weird. I glanced at him and smiled, trying to see what was going on. I surreptitiously touched my nose to see if any bats had escaped the cave, but it seemed clean. I looked at my shirt to see if I was wearing breakfast, no it was clean.

But the guy kept staring at me like he was mildly horrified. So I did what one should do in these situations on public transit: I ignored him.

At the next stop, the guy jumped up and moved about five rows away.

Four days into my new commute and I’ve already skeeved someone out. That must be some kind of record.

So then a couple stops later, another person got on the train and sat in the seat the last guy vacated. She seemed like a nice lady, if a bit Northern California granola. She also lasted just one stop with me before moving.

Four days into my new commute and I’ve skeeved out TWO people. I’m now a demi-god.

I texted The Good Man to see if he’d noticed I was giving off an aroma this morning and he confirmed that while maybe not fresh as a daisy (who has time to shower at 5am? Not me) I also wasn’t way stinky.

Well I have no idea what this is all about but I’m going to have to experiment with my new found power to repel. If only my powers could work on those I WANT to repel, that would really be worth something.






Image from Encyclopedia Britannica Blog.