Nobody, darnit

So I'm giving myself a night to sleep on it, but I'm pretty sure that tomorrow's going to be the day I actually, like for realsy reals, give notice at my job. I've tried to make this leap before, but I've never had anywhere to jump to. Well, now I've got school, student loans and some promises of assistance from my dad. I've got a roommate situation set up. I've got my health. I figure, at this point, it's better have a lifetime of debt with a fulfilling job than to be debt-free in a dead-end job I suck at. Having more money during school would be nice, but work would add its own stresses, too.

So my current job is kind of meh. I like the work just fine, but I'm having difficulty integrating with the office culture. However, today took a turn for the better. Why? Well first off, I discovered that one of the customer service reps is a science fiction fan, and her and another CSR talked to me about things that weren't work. And second, there was fuzziness! First, when I arrived, a gorgeous, friendly dog was roaming the office. She was a irish setter/lab mix (or something along those lines). Then, another co-worker brought around her bunny, a lop with huge, fuzzy feet that stuck up before her as she held him. And then! Just when it couldn't get any cuter! There was a kitten! A super young one in that state where they just sort of tremble all the time. Someone put it on a desk, and it batted around a highlighter.
Eeeeeeeeeeee!!!
Now, I sometimes have trouble relating to my new co-workers. They're not very conversational, and my quirkier attempts to bond fall flat. (Like my fascination with numbers. Nobody else cares that when we hit job number 24444, we're all gonna die.*) But they do like their animals. All the pictures on the wall are either kids or pets.** But if that means I get to play with kittens and bunnies on the job, I'll take it.

*I was so spoiled by working with my old co-worker Ryan, who is even weirder than me. Every now and then, I'd catch him walking around stiff-legged, pretending he didn't have knees.

**The exception is the aforementioned science fiction fan, who has a shrine to Hello Kitty in her cubicle.

So my co-worker comes charging into our department with a two-foot-long box. He drops it to the floor with a heavy thud. "What's in the box?" I ask.
"Emergen-C," he says.
"Emergen-C?" The drink? I keep a little box of it in my drawer to drink in the mornings. I figure I misheard him.
"Emergen-C."
Turns out it's for his friend who works in Africa. The group she works for tried getting malnourished kids to drink it, but it turns out they prefer to eat it straight. It's Pixy Sticks with vitamins! They adore it.

Thats:
1350 packets
25 pounds of Emergen-C!

When people go to Africa, they'll get a few boxes from my co-worker to take along. He's the Keeper of the Emergen-C.

It's been a really boring Friday.

We've got a cool job coming up, duplicating old pulp movie posters. We have to duplicate the giant out-of-register halftone screen without driving the pressmen crazy!

I've got my co-worker's dead father-in-law sitting next to me.
Who knew UPS had a "Human Remains" stamp? Ryan suggests the stamp would make a good t-shirt, and I'm inclined to agree.

This morning I was walking to work, and noticed a rock in my shoe. Whatever. I tapped my foot to move it to a better spot, and continued to work. Once there, I forgot about the rock for fifteen minutes or so. Then the rock bugged me, so I took off my shoe and dumped out a half-inch long insect. The little bug was still alive, if a bit shorter in a leg or two. I tried to put it outside, but it fell out of my hand and into the dark area at the bottom of the stairs filled with bug-shaped rocks and dirt. It's a tough little thing, surviving a quarter mile traveling beneath my foot, so I hope it makes it to pass on it's sturdy genes.

And now I can feel a phantom bug in my shoe.

Yesterday, I called pussinboots saying, "can we have the writing meeting at my work?"

Behind the cut is a dongle.
( dongle )
A dongle is a little doodad which you plug into a computer and it lets you run a piece of software. In my work's case, a program which arranges files so we can plate them and print them.

No dongle, no plates, no printing. This is bad for a printing press.

Sunday night, my co-worker, who was rushing to get as much work done as possible before he left to play in Disneyworld for a week, discovered the dongle stopped working.

Monday, I spent a couple hours on hold with Kodak finding out WTF to do. They say they'll send us a new one. We're number one priority. Fine.

Long story short, what was supposed to be an overnight delivery didn't happen, and we were jerked around by Kodak for three long days without plates. I tried to manually lay out the plates, but that was a very slow, painful joke. Someone had to stay late last night to await the courier coming down from Canada with the dongle. (The warehouse is just across the border. Our production manager said, "we'll just drive up there and pick the dang thing up." The lady he was talking to was all, "uhh..." So rather than have us busting their door down, they sprung for the courier.) The guy showed up quickly. Turns out we didn't have to have the meeting at work, to my disappointment. :-)

One day left in the week, and then my co-worker will be back. Ugh. I respect that guy, he's the one who usually has to deal with this crap. But lucky for me, we've got a new girl who knows what she's doing and is doing the job I usually do, while I wrestle with Kodak and programs I don't really know how to use.

So screw you, Kodak, and screw you, dongle.

Did I mention that today, in the mail, we got another dongle, identical to the one I'm holding, which acts in the same, non-functioning way as the original (visible in above image).

Screw you.