Well, I was going to take a walk this afternoon, but a storm has blown in, and the wind is actually blowing gusts of 40 mph; kind of a good decision that I've elected to stay indoors, do a little laundry, and scribble.
It's been a bit of an interesting week on all fronts. Work was a little too quiet (of course, these things will happen when you start shifting your repair volumes out of your facility), and the reminder that things aren't so well positioned came forth with yet a few more announcements of people, "electing to pursue other interests outside the company."
I half jokingly told my boss that if he was going to send out an email similar to the other announcements he'd sent out during the week, this time with my name listed, that he'd better bloody tell me first. "No chance," he said. "You're going nowhere."
Oh goody.
Being the last man standing in a repair shop without anything to repair is not nearly as gratifying as being the last guy standing at, let's say a crawfish boil. However, perhaps I can take some comfort in the security that I'm bound to keep my job for quite some time, abeit the comfort may not be much better than trying to wrap yourself in saran wrap and thinking you're now wearing a raincoat.
Ironcially, no sooner had my boss made his comments, I found myself on two separate occasions coming in contact with someone who looked upon me as if I was the absolute last person on the planet that they wanted to see. Kind of a creepy feeling at the time, and mildly irritating. I mention it cos' I was sort of caught off guard; I hadn't done anything to offend or annoy. At any rate, pub crowds can be funny, sometimes, and I wrote the experience off as sheer coincidence that the two times I was even in the pub this week it happened.
It is entirely possible that it was my own false perception. I've just started reading a new book by Nick Hornby, and like always with his stuff, I tend to get a bit pensive. Combine that with exteremely heavy listening to the new Alkaline Trio album that came out this week, and maybe I just dreamed the whole thing. Who knows?
Indeed, it was all about the trio this week; I've been waiting on their new album for some time, and I was pretty pleased with the effort. My neighbor made a comment when we saw each other in the stairway yesterday, "Ah, so the loud music I keep hearing is coming from your flat!!"
Oh yes indeedy. I'm kind of partial to "the american scream," myself.
So, I've got a bit of ironing ahead of me this evening, and I must do a bit of flat cleaning over the next several days, as my parents arrive this coming Friday.
I'll get right on it as soon as I've tweaked the stereo volume up a notch...
keep the faith
bryan
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Saturday, February 20, 2010
Starting Lent in Style
In a moment of madness this past week, I wore plaid pants to work. OK, I really like these pants, and despite that I first bought them when I was 17, they've held up remarkably well. At least that's my opinion, save for a bit of a rip in the right pocket that happened during a trip to Ireland once.
A few colleagues gave me some shit for the day's outfit, albeit more for the schoolboy sweater than for the pants (ooh! Bryan's gone preppy!). I thought I would be able to compensate later in the week (more normal attire for me is more jeans and boots), but had forgotten that a few of us had decided to suit up for Thursday evening, when we went off to a new location for a quiz night. (said events are relatively popular around here, and though I don't play so regularly, the fact that the quiz master said something to me like, "you'd better be there you little fucker," pretty much made it a no brainer).
So, Thursday morning, I arrived to work in suit and tie to greetings of, "ohmygosh, what has happened to you?" or "are there customers on site today?" and the like. Even the lady at the canteen spilled a little soup when she saw me cut through the kitchen on the way outside to walk around on the patio (equate that to powersmoke and chug cups of awful coffee; a typical ritual of mine, as I tend to be unable to sit still for very long, and prefer to pace about when speaking on the telephone. Thus, I'm outside frequently through the course of the day, depending on how much I allow myself to smoke, how much my office partner with the booming voice prevents me from having my own telephone conversation, or how cold it is outside).
Overall, the feedback on my attire was relatively positive ("gee, bryan, now you look like you're our chef (boss)"), and later that evening when all of us arrived at the little cafe for the quiz, we sort of brought an intimidation factor with us, which had an effect on the other quiz particpants. The day before, I had made the argument that at least by dressing up, we might feel a bit more intelligent. Typically when I have played the quiz, I have felt tremendously inadequate, especially since the folks I normally play with tend to know the answers to most of the questions. My contributions usually come from the music round or from the rare question about North American geography (you wouldn't believe how many Europeans believe there are either 49 or 52 states in the US).
Our intimidation helped, but not quite enough. We went into the last round in first place, then lost a couple of easy points because yours truly forgot who sang "I Wear My Sunglasses at Night" and wrote down a name so silly that I won't even repeat it here.
Thus, we came in 2nd place, which meant we won some gift certificates to the cafe, which we promptly used to pay our beer tab. All in all, not a bad little evening, though we may not do the suit thing again soon.
I was a bit tired yesterday morning, and hoped to call it an early day, but ended up working very late, which meant I was absolutely exhausted by the time I got home. Only time for a pizza, a movie, and a little ice cream before I simply fell into bed.
The challenges of work continue to both motivate and sadden me. Each week, we have to lay off a few more folks through contract termination or whatever, and that's not always easy to take. I don't have the history here that some of the other folks do, and, as in any unstable work environment, we'll continue to lose some of the talent as people simply find a better solution for themselves, which will make it all the more difficult in future to build (or rebuild) a team.
Meanwhile, on the positive front (choke), more stuff gets shovelled my way and if I'm not careful, I will get stretched pretty thin over the coming months. Prague is at the "let's flop about and lose control stage," which will mean I'll have to go back over there pretty quickly. And, someone decided we should relocate our call center, so I'm going to be involved in that transition, too, and that will probably mean a trip or two to Ireland. Sounds ok to me, but I've also got to race about and keep all the other balls in the air. However, my whole life is about instability, and I tend to work best in this type of situation, so there you have it.
Of course, that means the ipod is blaring all kinds of music right now, particularly as I need the constant psych up (pscyho?) element. Mission UK has been in heavy rotation this week, but there was a brief morning commute to the Mighty Mighty Bosstones (which prompted the plaid pants wearing excursion in the first place).
So the soundtrack for the week will be "God's Own Medicine," straight through from start to finish.
keep the faith
bryan
(note to Moe - the fun thing I did for the week was a bit of a combo: instead of going to the New Model Army show at midweek (I should be a fan, but am not), I elected to see if Arsenal would find a new way to let me down in their Champs League match. I wasn't disappointed. There's just nothing quite like sitting there watching your team collapse in a comedy of errors...)
A few colleagues gave me some shit for the day's outfit, albeit more for the schoolboy sweater than for the pants (ooh! Bryan's gone preppy!). I thought I would be able to compensate later in the week (more normal attire for me is more jeans and boots), but had forgotten that a few of us had decided to suit up for Thursday evening, when we went off to a new location for a quiz night. (said events are relatively popular around here, and though I don't play so regularly, the fact that the quiz master said something to me like, "you'd better be there you little fucker," pretty much made it a no brainer).
So, Thursday morning, I arrived to work in suit and tie to greetings of, "ohmygosh, what has happened to you?" or "are there customers on site today?" and the like. Even the lady at the canteen spilled a little soup when she saw me cut through the kitchen on the way outside to walk around on the patio (equate that to powersmoke and chug cups of awful coffee; a typical ritual of mine, as I tend to be unable to sit still for very long, and prefer to pace about when speaking on the telephone. Thus, I'm outside frequently through the course of the day, depending on how much I allow myself to smoke, how much my office partner with the booming voice prevents me from having my own telephone conversation, or how cold it is outside).
Overall, the feedback on my attire was relatively positive ("gee, bryan, now you look like you're our chef (boss)"), and later that evening when all of us arrived at the little cafe for the quiz, we sort of brought an intimidation factor with us, which had an effect on the other quiz particpants. The day before, I had made the argument that at least by dressing up, we might feel a bit more intelligent. Typically when I have played the quiz, I have felt tremendously inadequate, especially since the folks I normally play with tend to know the answers to most of the questions. My contributions usually come from the music round or from the rare question about North American geography (you wouldn't believe how many Europeans believe there are either 49 or 52 states in the US).
Our intimidation helped, but not quite enough. We went into the last round in first place, then lost a couple of easy points because yours truly forgot who sang "I Wear My Sunglasses at Night" and wrote down a name so silly that I won't even repeat it here.
Thus, we came in 2nd place, which meant we won some gift certificates to the cafe, which we promptly used to pay our beer tab. All in all, not a bad little evening, though we may not do the suit thing again soon.
I was a bit tired yesterday morning, and hoped to call it an early day, but ended up working very late, which meant I was absolutely exhausted by the time I got home. Only time for a pizza, a movie, and a little ice cream before I simply fell into bed.
The challenges of work continue to both motivate and sadden me. Each week, we have to lay off a few more folks through contract termination or whatever, and that's not always easy to take. I don't have the history here that some of the other folks do, and, as in any unstable work environment, we'll continue to lose some of the talent as people simply find a better solution for themselves, which will make it all the more difficult in future to build (or rebuild) a team.
Meanwhile, on the positive front (choke), more stuff gets shovelled my way and if I'm not careful, I will get stretched pretty thin over the coming months. Prague is at the "let's flop about and lose control stage," which will mean I'll have to go back over there pretty quickly. And, someone decided we should relocate our call center, so I'm going to be involved in that transition, too, and that will probably mean a trip or two to Ireland. Sounds ok to me, but I've also got to race about and keep all the other balls in the air. However, my whole life is about instability, and I tend to work best in this type of situation, so there you have it.
Of course, that means the ipod is blaring all kinds of music right now, particularly as I need the constant psych up (pscyho?) element. Mission UK has been in heavy rotation this week, but there was a brief morning commute to the Mighty Mighty Bosstones (which prompted the plaid pants wearing excursion in the first place).
So the soundtrack for the week will be "God's Own Medicine," straight through from start to finish.
keep the faith
bryan
(note to Moe - the fun thing I did for the week was a bit of a combo: instead of going to the New Model Army show at midweek (I should be a fan, but am not), I elected to see if Arsenal would find a new way to let me down in their Champs League match. I wasn't disappointed. There's just nothing quite like sitting there watching your team collapse in a comedy of errors...)
Saturday, February 13, 2010
yawn, just killing time
Well, it's been an interesting week of firsts.
I managed to finally tick the box and visited the Staedel Museum. There has been a Botticelli exhibit on display for the past few months, and I managed to squeeze in the trip before it ends next week. I'm not really one of those guys that is frequently walking around art galleries, but I do enjoy the experience when it comes up, and I certainly was not disappointed, despite the 45 minutes of queuing outside in the cold.
That was a rather decent way to start the week, and the culture mix continued when I went to a little poetry reading/interpretation at a library in the city on Wednesday evening. A South African author who writes very angry poetry gave a bit of a talk, and rapped from several of the books he's written over the past 17 years or so. He's a little older than I am, and I appreciated his bitter sarcasm. I'm probably not going to run out and buy his works, but it was pretty interesting seeing and hearing his take on the happenings in his country over the past 25 years.
What I found even more interesting was the way the mediator would translate his comments into German for the audience. I got the feeling most everyone there had a relatively good grasp of English (which this guy spoke and read in), but the author's candor was pretty aggressive. He spoke very graphically, and I smiled more than once at some times that Whit and I used to make some very similar references and expressions when we were much younger. Of course, I'll in know way suggest that Whit or I was on the same level as this guy. How can you compare "turning someone over and eating them like an ice cream cone," to the rage this guy expressed about the plight of the people of his country.
At any rate, the question and answer session at the end of the talk was also quite enjoyable. More than once, the dialog went astray, due in part to language barrier, but due more to the fact that this guy had a tendency to be a smart ass whenever the opportunity presented itself.
But, it was quite the way to spend an evening.
Earlier in the week, I'd decided to take the day off on Friday. I've worked half this year in Prague, and needed a day to sort of get things in order around the house. Had I remembered to turn my alarm clock off, perhaps I wouldn't have woken up so early Friday morning, as I'd been out a little late the night before. Fortunately, I did manage to turn over and go back to sleep for a couple of hours, thus having a bit of a lie in. However, I woke up and realized that I'd not turned my "out of office assistant" on, which meant that a fair amount of emails were in need of response.
I made myself a coffee, then took care of the work. (priorities first, you know)
Then, a few hours later, I was trying to convince myself to go to the gym, when an opportunity to go shopping presented itself, and about 30 minutes later, I set foot in an Ikea for the very first time. I held out as long as I could, I must say, and overall, I can understand why the place is constantly full of people stocking up on things that I'm sure they justify are really needed for their household. Since my flat is already kitted, it's not as if I need to visit Ikea on a regular basis, but I noted that there are some cool things on offer. I did buy a bit of bed linen, so you might say that at least I took away a souvineer.
So, I'd do (and will do) all three things again, when the chances arise. Personally, I'd bet I'm more likely to be in the museum or the library again before hanging out in the picture frame department of a furniture warehouse, but you've got to do it sometimes, eh?
I'll leave it at that for today; perhaps one of the most boring posts I've put up in a long time.
next week - more details on what happens when some idiot technician uses a customer's laptop to surf the internet and pull down as much gansta rap as possible while chatting online at flirt.com during the repair process - tentative title will be something along the lines of, "why diplomacy helps a fuckload in the job of a program manager."
keep the faith
bryan
I managed to finally tick the box and visited the Staedel Museum. There has been a Botticelli exhibit on display for the past few months, and I managed to squeeze in the trip before it ends next week. I'm not really one of those guys that is frequently walking around art galleries, but I do enjoy the experience when it comes up, and I certainly was not disappointed, despite the 45 minutes of queuing outside in the cold.
That was a rather decent way to start the week, and the culture mix continued when I went to a little poetry reading/interpretation at a library in the city on Wednesday evening. A South African author who writes very angry poetry gave a bit of a talk, and rapped from several of the books he's written over the past 17 years or so. He's a little older than I am, and I appreciated his bitter sarcasm. I'm probably not going to run out and buy his works, but it was pretty interesting seeing and hearing his take on the happenings in his country over the past 25 years.
What I found even more interesting was the way the mediator would translate his comments into German for the audience. I got the feeling most everyone there had a relatively good grasp of English (which this guy spoke and read in), but the author's candor was pretty aggressive. He spoke very graphically, and I smiled more than once at some times that Whit and I used to make some very similar references and expressions when we were much younger. Of course, I'll in know way suggest that Whit or I was on the same level as this guy. How can you compare "turning someone over and eating them like an ice cream cone," to the rage this guy expressed about the plight of the people of his country.
At any rate, the question and answer session at the end of the talk was also quite enjoyable. More than once, the dialog went astray, due in part to language barrier, but due more to the fact that this guy had a tendency to be a smart ass whenever the opportunity presented itself.
But, it was quite the way to spend an evening.
Earlier in the week, I'd decided to take the day off on Friday. I've worked half this year in Prague, and needed a day to sort of get things in order around the house. Had I remembered to turn my alarm clock off, perhaps I wouldn't have woken up so early Friday morning, as I'd been out a little late the night before. Fortunately, I did manage to turn over and go back to sleep for a couple of hours, thus having a bit of a lie in. However, I woke up and realized that I'd not turned my "out of office assistant" on, which meant that a fair amount of emails were in need of response.
I made myself a coffee, then took care of the work. (priorities first, you know)
Then, a few hours later, I was trying to convince myself to go to the gym, when an opportunity to go shopping presented itself, and about 30 minutes later, I set foot in an Ikea for the very first time. I held out as long as I could, I must say, and overall, I can understand why the place is constantly full of people stocking up on things that I'm sure they justify are really needed for their household. Since my flat is already kitted, it's not as if I need to visit Ikea on a regular basis, but I noted that there are some cool things on offer. I did buy a bit of bed linen, so you might say that at least I took away a souvineer.
So, I'd do (and will do) all three things again, when the chances arise. Personally, I'd bet I'm more likely to be in the museum or the library again before hanging out in the picture frame department of a furniture warehouse, but you've got to do it sometimes, eh?
I'll leave it at that for today; perhaps one of the most boring posts I've put up in a long time.
next week - more details on what happens when some idiot technician uses a customer's laptop to surf the internet and pull down as much gansta rap as possible while chatting online at flirt.com during the repair process - tentative title will be something along the lines of, "why diplomacy helps a fuckload in the job of a program manager."
keep the faith
bryan
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