Kingfisher Cove

Here with the Birds

It's nice enough here at Harstine to be outside on the deck (where I get much better connection to the internet via my T-Mobile PC card).  It's chilly, though, so we have a crackling fire.  It's been two weeks since we were here so the bird and squirrel feeders were completely barren.  I'd left a couple of empty plastic coffee cans with lids sitting out that I was using to store bird seed. They were strewn in the flower bed and so I wondered if we'd had some wind that knocked them over.  But when I retrieved them, the plastic lids were totally gnawed all around the rims!  JDub figures the chipmunks and/or squirrels could smell the remnants of the seed inside and were trying to get to it!  It's kind of eerie looking.  It would have been interesting to actually see them doing it. (Someday I'd really like to install a webcam!)  So the feeders are now full as well as the bird bath, and we've been seeing quite a few Towhees in particular, especially doing the bird bath dance.  No sign of the chipmunks or squirrels yet -- maybe they wore themselves out trying to gnaw inside those (empty) coffee cans.

Jeeze!  Last night on my way home from work I took my car through the carwash.  Afterwards, I could hear a strange sound, kind of like wind whooshing.  All my windows were up, though, and there wasn't any water leakage from the carwash.  Once I got home I forgot about it until I headed out to pick up JDub at the airport.  The sound was much louder, and was especially bad when I'd brake.  I figured that something was dragging underneath my car.  I got all kinds of odd looks and stares as I pulled through the airport.  This morning JDub finally had a chance to take a peek and a big black plastic....thing....that was some kind of undercarriage protector or something, had been dislodged and was hanging down, dragging on the ground.  JDub removed it, but my front license plate is missing and one of my parking lights is busted!  I didn't hear anything out of the ordinary going through the carwash, but it sure did some damage.  Crap!  I need to get my license plate back.

Mmm.  Sure is nice to be here.

Relief! After Hell....

This week from hell is finally over and relaxation is most definitely on the agenda for a couple of days.  My two proposals both due today were finally delivered, and on time. They're outa here.  But man!  I was on the brink of tears at work yesterday.  Remember these first three items on my bitch list?

• Establishing a schedule with assigned action items and due-dates and nobody (except me) abides by it.
• Having no control or authority whatsoever with enforcing aforementioned schedule and action items. 
• Hearing "I'm too busy".  Yeah, well, me too, but the deadline is on my shoulders and it ain't gonna happen without your assigned ACTION ITEMS.  Unless you want fiction, baby!

Well, it all came to a head.  In an earlier post, I mentioned a difficult woman in one of our branch offices whom I came to feel pretty good about just last week after meeting with her in person to go over the nuts and bolts of these proposals.  Well, that was all blown to hell yesterday.  In a nutshell (because I don't want to bore you with all the grueling details) she was just "too busy" to provide me with the technical write-ups to include in the proposals.  (My sense is because "she's way more important" than the proposal schedule -- until it comes down to the absolute wire and then suddenly the proposals are THE MOST IMPORTANT THINGS ON EARTH).  After informing her that what she needed to provide had to be very concise because of the stringent page limitations, I received a NOVEL to try to fit into less than two pages.  And she had the audacity to say, "You must make this fit because there is nothing I want deleted."  Uhm, right.  So I spent hours editing it down -- partly because it was poorly written and riddled with errors.  In fact, I edited down the entire document (both of them) to try to accommodate as much of her technical write-up as possible. Exceeding the page limit would be considered non-compliant and the client would toss the proposals into the circular file (garbage can), not to be considered.  Then she had a fit that I edited down her manifesto diatribe.  All of this created extensive extra work for me (and consider that working on two proposals at the same time for the same client that are very similar but also different, require incredible focus and diligence to make sure you don't get the two confused!)  Plus, I had to be in a marketing meeting most of the day yesterday.  And THEN she immediately wanted another draft to edit.  I said (via email -- all our communications were via email), "There isn't time.  Since we have over-shot the schedule, and I will be in a meeting for several hours today, we need to finalize these and allow time for quality control review and production.  At the end of the day I will send you PDFs of the proposals and if you see anything that would be considered "make-or-break", I would want to know about it as soon as possible. Otherwise, we need to consider these final."

Well.  She wrote back a scathing email, whining about being up until midnight to write her manifesto diatribe, and "you WILL provide me with a draft and I WILL make edits and you WILL abide by those edits." 

Excuse my French (uhm, Margaret), but what a fucking bitch.  If she'd adhered to the schedule, she wouldn't have needed to be up until midnight.  And if she was truly "too busy" to do her part for these proposals, then they should have decided not to pursue them. I decided to not even respond to that email. I was tempted, but I recognized that I was also furious and that it would behoove me to get a grip and keep my silence.  I felt that I'd been assertive in handling things, but I didn't want to pander to her aggression.  Plus, I didn't know exactly how all of this would be perceived by my boss, whom I'd been keeping in the loop by cc-ing her with all these emails.  I kept asking myself, "Am I being unreasonable? Am I being flexible enough?  At what point do you draw the line before you lose your sanity?"  I felt that I was doing all the right things, but others' perceptions can certainly differ.  I hate pissing people off, but I also hate being walked on and treated with undeserved disrespect.

Thankfully, it was a really good thing that I cc'd my boss throughout all of this because my boss told me that she is totally outraged with how I was treated.  She is fully supportive with how I handled things.  She wants to meet with these people in the branch office next week and have a "little confrontation".  They were out-of-line and it was unacceptable. 

My head's sort of spinning.  It's all Twilight Zone all the time.  I'm very thankful that my boss is supporting me in this (very thankful), but to be honest, I have to wonder if maybe I'm being set up and once we get down there for this "little confrontration" she'll turn the tables on me?  I mean, I don't feel 100% 80% 70% 50% trusting of her....

God.  Why the hell can't I win the lottery?

However -- it's Friday night, JDub's plane arrives in about an hour from now, and we head to Harstine tomorrow morning.  Like I said, relaxation is definitely on the agenda.

You're On Notice

via Verbatim ~ Get yours here

Cranky

A bulleted list of gripes.  (Are you up for it?)

• Establishing a schedule with assigned action items and due-dates and nobody (except me) abides by it.
• Having no control or authority whatsoever with enforcing aforementioned schedule and action items. 
• Hearing "I'm too busy".  Yeah, well, me too, but the deadline is on my shoulders and it ain't gonna happen without your assigned ACTION ITEMS.  Unless you want fiction, baby!
• Knowing that those who are "too busy" receive bonuses if a project is awarded.  Nothing for the marketing coordinators who sweat all the bullets.  And just sweat, period.
• Men with HUGE, LOUD, OBNOXIOUS, ENDS-OF-THE-EARTH-CARRYING VOICES who leave their office doors open WHILE ON THE F*CKING SPEAKER PHONE.
• 99.9% of the commercials on my radio at my desk (or car, if I can hear it through the *!&%$! static).  (In the cases of horrible commercials, I think the static is more tolerable).
• Idiots who pronounce "hundreds" as "hunnerds".
• That time of the month.  (Grrrrr). (At 50, shouldn't I be done with this?)
• The September sun in my eyes.  I know, I shouldn't gripe about that.  It's a gift to have the sun out at all this time of year, and it is truly beautiful -- what I can see through the blinding glare aimed directly at my eyes causing intense burning and mascara rivulets.  Far worse than slicing onions.  Dangerous, too.  It's amazing how often the entire sun ball is parked directly behind a traffic light.  Did it really turn green or is that something really bad seared permanently onto my retinas?
• My new wallet.
• (I like my new purse, though).
• Having three pairs of pants, all the exact same style but different colors, all the same size, but they all fit differently.
• Fruit flies!  They're breeding and multiplying in this house!
• I miss JDub.

He's at a RESORT????

I kid, but not really.  I heard from JDub tonight and he was pretty blown away in awe over his environs.  This "leadership center" is where he'll be and where he'll stay throughout the entire week -- there's no leaving the campus.  But what a campus it is!  Nestled on a bluff overlooking the Missouri River. A huge room to himself that's "way better than any hotel room I've ever stayed in" -- which says a lot because he's done a LOT of traveling over the years with boat-racing and has stayed in some pretty impressive places.  (Including Hawaii).  His room is complete with computer desk and lounge chair and a HUMONGOUS bathroom.  The place is immense -- almost 300 acres.  Today wasn't particularly demanding because it was the arrival day (four hours in the air without a cigarette!) and he said there is food everywhere you look.  All these lounges and nooks and crannies with gourmet food and fresh fruit and chips and beverages.  And he said dinner was unbelievable -- roasted sirloin (similar to prime rib) with baked potato cubes (!?), cauliflower, and cheesecake for dessert.  (There's a renowned chef on staff there).  He had an orientation tonight, and then I'm sure he'll be smack-dab sizzling in the frying pan beginning early tomorrow morning and probably won't care much that he's in this amazing complex.  I'll just bet he's in for a combination of grueling and Dilbertesque brainwashing leadership training:  "Here's all the gazillion complicated value-added task items, Powerpoint bullet points, and core capabilities in order to accomplish this viable end product, and these are your team members with whom you are to accomplish them with!"  God, I HATE working in groups.  I remember having to do that for the first time in the 9th grade and it was a total disaster because my group consisted of Larry, Curly, Moe, and then ME.  You can probably imagine who had to do the work of FOUR people.  My dad attended something like this back in the 1970s and in his group was a guy from...Iran...? Somewhere, who could hardly speak English, and so there was a huge communications gap within the group.  They ultimately all ended up ignoring this guy because they couldn't understand him.  At the end when the team members critiqued each other in a session before the entire group, this guy ripped a new asshole out of everyone in his team (with apparently improved English) because he'd been ignored, then he started to cry, then he ran into the restroom (which was on like the 20th floor of a skyscraper) and so Dad arranged for someone to run in there with him in case he decided to jump out a window or something. Everything ended up OK, but I can understand both the frustration of having someone you're supposed to communicate with being non-English-speaking, PLUS being that non-English-speaking person.  However, if you are that person, what could you expect?  That's even more of an issue these days.  I consider myself a very liberal person, but I have very little tolerance for dealing with customer service people who CAN'T SPEAK ENGLISH.  How can they expect to achieve anything here -- often after risking their lives to get here -- if they don't make an effort to learn the language?  I think of JDub's grandparents who escaped here from Germany during the rise of Hitler, and the first thing they did was LEARN ENGLISH.  To the point where speaking German was hardly spoken in the home -- what better way to learn?  And they became very successful and well-respected people!  Like, duh.  (When in Rome....?)

I learned that the reason for my VPN issue Saturday was because of a power outage in our corporate office which shut down several of our servers.  I was relieved to hear that -- that my horrific issues weren't the norm.  I guess a lot of other folks were pissed off, too.  I figured it had to be something very wrong -- I couldn't imagine what I went through being acceptable!  Today, in spite of being up before the butt-crack of dawn, I was one focused robot throughout the entire day.  Man!  I did accomplish a lot, but now these proposals are in for "review" and I just know it'll mean having to re-do a whole bunch tomorrow.  The technical guy is not only "extremely busy" with other matters, but he's also sick -- he has young children.  So he just has not been forthcoming -- and I'll learn what all I missed by others tomorrow.  Hopefully. (God, hopefully not a WHOLE lot...) I'll likely be back on the VPN tomorrow night...

Blogging at the Butt-Crack of Dawn

Actually, dawn has not yet broken.  It might as well be midnight outside.

I dropped off JDub at the airport shortly after 5:00 a.m. this morning, which is not very far from where we live, thank God!  My plan was to go to Curves and work out afterward, so I'd climbed into my workout clothes beforehand (while JDub was all crisp and professorial-looking in his white shirt, sport coat, and trimmed-up beard).  The problem was that once I arrived at Curves, it was closed and not due to open for nearly a half hour!  So I came home and decided to write a brief post before hitting the shower and heading into work early.  (I am nervous about all that I did not accomplish this weekend).

We had a wonderful (and beautiful) day at Camano Island yesterday.  My brother and his family came up, too.  It was very nice to all be together before Dad leaves for Arizona for the winter in just a couple of weeks.  JDub and I took a couple of short beach walks and found several agates (one in particular that he found was of gem quality!  Almost perfectly round).  We also watched the Seahawks game (we won!) and the first half was just amazing.  At one time we were ahead 42-3!  We're undefeated so far this year, coming off the Superbowl loss in January, which makes me just ache to think back on it.  We likely wouldn't have won that game anyway because they played pretty poorly, but I remember the officiating being astronomically bad which had to contribute to their loss of morale throughout the game.

On the drive home last night, I shot some photos driving through Seattle (while moving, obviously!)  I thought this one turned out especially nifty.

A Frustrating Day of Working

My God.  I do know that my work laptop is no mean machine (half the processor speed of my own laptop).  And I've never had experience with VPN before, so I wasn't sure what to expect (tying in through the internet with our servers at work so it's supposedly "just like sitting at your desktop at work.")  But this was utterly AWFUL.  I have spent hours today working on this proposal and have hardly made progress.  We use InDesign, which I love, but it's a resource hog in the best of situations.  This made me feel like I was back in 1993 with my 256 computer trying to log onto Prodigy (via my 24K dial-up modem) and watching the cheesy graphics gradually appear line-by-line. I could go down and transfer laundry waiting for a page to load and return and it still hadn't loaded.  Simply moving the cursor from one line to another line in the document took 45 seconds to respond.  InDesign would flutter between "program not responding" to just sitting there, until I tried to do something, such as TYPE TEXT, and then it would stop responding again!  I don't know how many panic attacks I had wondering if it was going to simply crash on me and I'd lose everything.  But saving the document took a good five minutes before I'd be able to work again!

This is unacceptable!  And computer upgrades are "not in the budget at this time." 

I'd damned well bet they would be in the budget if I was being paid OVERTIME for this!

I've Never Been a Tom Petty Fan...

....but I've gotta tell ya, I sure do *heart* his new CD "Highway Companion".  It began, of course, by hearing "Saving Grace" on the radio and immediately taking a shine to it. 

I said to JDub one day, "You know, Tom Petty has this new song out––"

"I know just what you mean!  I really like it!"

So we listened to the brief snippets of the rest of the album on Amazon and I decided to purchase it (plus it was only $9.50 or something, which is the price that CDs should be!)  Well, it arrived today and I'm listening to it right here and right now and the whole thing is really good.  Good traveling tunes, which is the point, obviously.  And also somewhat bluesy.  His voice at times has made me think of Dylan, whom I just DON'T care for -- but that's very minimized here. 

I probably sound behind-the-times, because I suspect that most people these days download their music from ITunes or whatever and don't buy many CDs anymore, but I don't have an I-Pod or anything.  I don't like wearing those little ear buds -- they've always hurt my ears.  Plus JDub and I enjoy listening to music together.

Aren't you glad it's Friday?  I sure am, although I brought my work laptop home so guess what I get to do this weekend?  (Not Sunday, though!  We're going to Camano on Sunday!) 

It Was a Pretty Good Day

I'm feeling a lot of relief!  I had to go down to one of our branch offices today (about 30 miles away) and have a meeting with two of the key technical people regarding these two proposals that are both due a week from tomorrow.  One of them I've dealt with before when I was really new and she was intimidating and difficult and later my boss told me that she'd bad-mouthed me behind my back.  Which I found utterly bewildering -- and maybe not true because I'm a bit wary of some of the things my boss tells me, but who knows?  So I went into this feeling a certain amount of dread, but it ended up being wonderful.  Both were warm and friendly and complimentary and fun and most important they provided me with a wealth of information so I know that my imminent deadline will be met, no problemo.  I sense that this intimidating woman has come to trust/respect me especially since the recent big winning proposal I did for them.  Then I spent the rest of the afternoon down there and it's actually a very pleasant working environment.  The vacant cube I sat in with my laptop connected to the office wireless was modern and spacious and well-lit, plus it was quiet and comfortable.  Too bad that office is actually over 50 miles away from where I live -- they've been frantically trying to find a marketing coordinator without any success, which is why I've been essentially handling their proposals (remotely).  But I just wouldn't be willing to put 100 miles on my car every day!  (Even though the company would reimburse me for part of the mileage).  Anyway, I feel a great weight lifted off my shoulders.

Since I came home directly from the branch office, I have my work laptop with me.  (This household has sooooo many computers right now!  It's kind of disgusting).  My work laptop has the VPN on it that I haven't tried from home yet since I figured it might be a major hassle to configure it with our home wireless system.  But JDub is home this evening because he's had to work day shift these past three days and so maybe he can walk me through it.  I'd much prefer to have the VPN installed on my OWN laptop so I could work from it (it's bigger, faster, more powerful plus I just hate carting a laptop back and forth) but some of the software isn't compatible.  In fact, software on MY computer is more up-to-date!  Pretty frustrating!

And then....the premiere of the new season's "Grey's Anatomy" starts tonight!  I learned today that it'll be on at the same time as "CSI" which irks me, except we have DVR so I'll just record it.  We can then watch "CSI" tomorrow night!  Woohoo! 

So it really wasn't sunny and rainbowy today, but at the moment it is.  Peering across the little view of the water we have from our house toward Tacoma, you can tell that it's raining like crazy-mad over there.  But here it's sunny, so there probably is a rainbow some place.  My commute today was pretty miserable in pouring rain and hydroplaning semi-trucks kicking up rooster tails from every angle.  I hate semis! 

A Little Humor is in Order

It's rainy and cloudy and Septembery (not in a good way), and I'm having to get used to the dimness and darkness now.  There's been the fight over Nate's laptop (which was truly a fight, but it's finally resolved -- do not ever purchase anything via Amazon from a third-party fly-by-night called "Elecsurf".  Not only was the guy incredibly rude and attempted to pull the wool over our eyes through a raging email exchange since there's no phone number to call, he obviously speaks/writes English as a second fourth language.  I get so tired of that!)  There's been work, although it's somewhat improved in areas.  My boss has behaved as if she never had a case of the email nasties Monday morning.  She later went on and on about her rotten weekend and I noticed a zit on her face so that probably explains some things, as I only notice a zit on her face once a month.  (My bad).  But I'm back in the fray of non-responsiveness on the part of technical staff and feeling quite overloaded with responsibility and looming deadlines.  What else is new?  I did learn that a big proposal I did a couple of weeks ago was a WIN for the company which made me feel darned good.  It was also a proposal that the technical staff was actually very responsive, so why can't they learn from the benefits of that?  Like, duh.

So Nate heads back to school this coming Monday (with his new laptop!) and JDub also leaves on Monday for St. Louis for his week-long managers' brainwashing training conference.  (It'll be so odd not to have him around!)  In preparation for that as well as needing to tend to some things around here Saturday (such as JDub installing cable for our home internet connection and discontinuing DSL), we've decided to forgo Harstine this weekend.  However, we are heading up to Camano Island Sunday to visit my dad and take him out to dinner.  Gosh, it's been since the 4th of July since we've seen him!  I'm pleased that Nate's going, too!

I've also read a couple of good books lately.  (Escape!) Margaret recommended James Lee Burke's Pegasus Descending and it was excellent. Like she said, this guy is a poet as well as a wonderful thriller writer.  It's sooooo refreshing to read such amazing writing, as opposed to Clive Cussler.  My God.  There aren't enough poles in the world to be as "apart" as those two are.  I guess you'd have to count all the poles on all the planets -- including Pluto's.  I'm currently reading Greg Iles' Blood Memory and it's very good, too.  I love psychological thrillers!  Lots of major twists in this one.

OK, so my post wasn't particularly humorous, but that cartoon just about threw me to the floor in fits of laughter!  Dog butt aroma therapy candles! 

Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!