Category: work

There’s a Sucker Born Every Minute

Yesterday at work, I printed a Very Important Document to the shared color printer down the hall. As my company is as cheap as possible, we’re not to use the color printer except for VERY Important Documents, so this was a very big deal.

As I waited for the dulcet tones of the finicky color printer processing my job, a message popped up on my screen. The printer manager was reporting that the “Waste Receptacle is Full”

Um. Ok. I didn’t know printers came with their own waste receptacle, but fine.

I walked to the printer and following the directions on its tiny LED screen. I opened the right flap. I pulled out “tray B”, and emptied tray B of a gooey black tarlike substance, replaced tray B, closed the flap, and heard the printer begin to warm up.

Ah, here we go. My beautiful full color document is just moments away!

“Printer warming up….”

So I waited. And waited. I wondered if I should wrap a sweater around the poor thing because it was clearly really cold if it needed twenty minutes to warm up. I mean, it’s hot like the bowels of hell hot inside our HVAC impaired office, but this little color printer must have a metabolism issue.

When it was finally reporting it had imbibed a hot toddy and was raring to go, I listened again for the sounds of the machine working, filled with happy anticipation.

Another message popped up on my screen. This time is said “Toner is low. Please replace.”

*sigh*

Fine.

Back I went to the machine and again followed the directions on screen. I lifted the main assembly, figured out which toner compartment was low, dropped several blocks of wax toner into the slot, thus using up the last of the supply, and closed the lid.

While the machine drank another hot toddy and shivered its way back to health, I took the empty box over to the group admin so she could order more.

Finally, the printer shuddered and shook and petulantly spit out my document.

This morning I needed to scan a document. Well that requires the big multiplex copier, printer, scanner, fax, coffee maker, photo booth, lube oil and filter change machine in the breakroom and shared by the whole floor.

I figured I was safe…this was just a scan. No toner or paper or other consumables would be required on this one! Scan, send. Easy peasy!

Nope.

I walk to the printer, lay my document in the feeder and immediately a message pops up on the screen.

“Scans may not be clear due to dirt on the lens. Please follow the directions below.”

So I followed the directions and I opened and shut doors and flaps, and found a little wiping tool and I slid it down the lens and then I cleaned the whole damn thing up and shut the doors and flaps and waited the twenty minutes and finally got my freaking scan.

The machines. They know. Evidently no one else on the floor will give them TLC, but I will. They line up and come to me for blessings, ministrations and tending to their wounds.

I’m Mother Teresa of Xeroxistan.






Image is a still from the fabulous movie Office Space.


In Like a Lion, Out like A….

Been reading via the ABQJournal that April has been a rather windy month for my Fair New Mexico.

Or as my NM friend Natalie so eloquently put it on Twitter: “Life’s glitter just fell off…it’s so damned windy, dusty, smoky here!”

Indeed. The glitter not only fell off, it was sandblasted away.

In an article today regarding education cuts in New Mexico, Leslie Linthicum says:

“I’ve been thinking about the wind lately. And by thinking about the wind, I mean hating it…”

Leslie posits that the wind makes everyone a little bit nutty:

“In addition to picking up tons of grit and garbage from the Arizona state line and moving it over to the Texas state line and then moving it all back again, the wind makes people nuts.

Yes, it will loosen your screws and knock you off your rocker. It will drive your train off the track and turn you dippy, loony and screwy.

Did I mention cuckoo? The wind will gladly make you that, too, just as soon as it finishes blowing some bats into your belfry and the cheese clear off your cracker.”

Ah, home sweet gritty home.

It’s been rather windy here in the Bay Area, too. I mean, we get a good wind up off the water and often it’s that coastal wind that drives the fog inland. But whenever I hear my fellow Bay Arean complain of the wind, I just smile.

These people don’t know from wind.

New Mexico knows.

I used to work at Sandia Labs in a building just off the Eubank entrance to Kirtland Air Force Base.

Our huge parking lot was uniquely located to catch the full blast of wind that channeled through the gap where the Sandias end and the Manzanos begin. That wind would come hurtling through the gap like a runaway freight train, picking up speed as it hit the valley floor.

Wind that brutal made walking to my car in order to drive home at the end of the day a unique and not enjoyable experience. More than once, I was physically knocked to the ground by that Spring wind. I once just simply crawled the rest of the way to my car, sand filling my teeth and eyes and ears. Oh, and my nose. Oh the nose. *honk, honk*

Freeloading on all that wind is millions upon millions of particles of pollen, all ready to provide itches, hives and sneezing so hard I’d see stars in front of my eyes.

My best friend’s dad spent some time in Amarillo where I’m convinced the wind never stops blowing. He likes to say that the best way to tell the force of the wind is to attach a logging chain to a sturdy post. If the wind blows so hard the chain is standing straight out, well, that’s pretty darn windy.

It’s when it’s gusting so hard that links are snapping off the end that you might wanna get yourself inside.

I feel for you, My Fair New Mexico, suffering through an April that came in like a lion is going out like a really, really pissed off lion.






Photo by Lize Rixt and used royalty free from stock.xchng.


Egads!

While I was in the breakroom this morning, The Red Phone started ringing!

Gah!

I almost jumped out of my shoes. I stared at it in confusion and disbelief, much like how people respond to a ringing payphone. I wavered over whether or not to answer it. After about seven rings, it stopped.

Was this a matter of national importance? Or simply one of those “the warranty on your car has expired…” call ‘bots? We may never know.

I guess the phone works now.


Free Association, the headcold version

In my internet wanderings over the weekend, I stumbled across LunaNiña.com, and the weekly feature Unconscious Mutterings.

It’s simply a good old-fashioned bit of free association, used to learn something more about a (usually troubled) person.

So what the heck, I’m usually troubled, why not play along?

Here we go…

  1. Limited :: Yeah, that reminds me of that really great store in the mall from when I was a youth. I loved The Limited, used to buy all my clothes there. Is that place even open anymore? A quick Google search says yes. That’s so out of my demographic anymore…

  2. Zombie :: Braaiiiiiins! Braaaaaains! Or, what I looked like this morning with a face puffy from a headcold and a red, raw nose. Tiiiiisssue! Tiiiiisssue!

  3. Energy :: As in, I have none

  4. Proof :: Proof? You want proof? I don’t gotta prove nothing to no one!

  5. Hassle :: I’m saying! Don’t hassle me about proof. I’ll give you proof when I’m damn good and ready! (don’t mind me, it’s the fever talking)

  6. Peep :: Does anyone actually like and eat those marshmallow Peeps? They must, because the stores are filled to the ceilings full of those vibrant hued sticky blobs. Look, I love sugar as much as the next guy, but those things are gross. Give me a Cadbury egg any day of the week!

  7. Jogger :: Which is what I’ll need to become if I keep snarfing down the Cadbury treats.

  8. Hunt :: Where in the hell did I put the TV remote? I swear to god I think The Good Man took it. I’ll whup a knot on his head! Don’t make me hunt you down! Oh…there it is, under my left buttock. I can’t help it, I’m sick. : cue the pitiful music :

  9. Career :: I hope I still have one after being sick three times in seven months. My boss is very patient, but this morning he said “You are sick *again*?” Yeah…..

  10. Plants :: The plants are digging the sun. All the little leaves and buds are alive and kicking. Spring is springing up everywhere, I love it! Not that I can enjoy it today as I’m on the couch snuffling and feeling sorry for myself. : sad trombones :


Ok, ok…enough of that….. I seem to be stuck on a meme, and not a very good one.

Onward into the day. Waiter, I’ll take a bathtub full of Theraflu…nighttime flavor.

Oooh yeaah.

Today’s incoherent ramblings brought to you by:




One To Ponder On

There’s a lady I work with who I like a lot, and she and I have become pretty good friends. We’ve decided, together, that we need to get more exercise during our long work days. To that end, we’ve started taking lunchtime walks along all the wonderful walking paths near our office.

During the walks, we generally kibitz or cuss about work or discuss the news of the day. I’ve learned that my new friend is a big fan of birds, I think she keeps three at home. She loves looking at all the wild birds out there in our marshland ponds, and I do too.

I’ve talked before about the proliferation of birds, and especially Canada geese, here in my vicinity.

Yesterday my friend and I were walking around the lake at a brisk pace when she suddenly stopped and gasped. “Look at that goose!” she said and pointed.

Running along one side our little lake is a very busy street. This goose was strutting out into traffic, headed for a sizable puddle of standing water. There must have been something tasty looking in that stale water, because the goose would not be denied, full speed ahead…until a car went zooming by, and the goose was blown back by the jet wash.

“Get back here!” my friend shouted to the unsteady goose, as though her maternal tone would make it mind its manners.

“Get back here you goose! You silly, silly goose! You’re a silly goose! Yes you are, why are you such a silly goose?”

Oddly, the goose must have known he was in the presence of One Who Knows Birds, because it did just as she asked. It looked at her warily, then that silly high stepping goose strutted its way back over to the curb, ungracefully waddled up, and went about its way munching at the green grass.

“That’s a good goose,” my friend said as we continued our walk.

I smiled to myself. Now, just who is the real silly goose? The one trying to find food for its existence, or the human hollering at a bird?

Hmmm?





Since today is actually Thursday, then it must be time for Theme Thursday. Today’s prompt is: Silly