May 16, 2001 — Not too long now

For those of you who haven't been keeping score, my current job requires that I wake up at 5:30 am and that I return home at around 5:30 pm. This means that I should be in bed at around 9:30 pm if I'm to have any chance at getting a healthy amount of sleep. (And despite what you've heard, I'm actually trying to do this these days.)

Last night, I didn't fall asleep until late. 1:00 am or so. Today, I arrived home at 5:30 pm, read my email and got caught up on some online things, and was too exhausted not to lie down by the time 6:30 pm rolled around. I slept for over two hours. Now it's almost time for me to go to sleep again (and I'm still exhausted, so this won't be a problem), and there's something less than satisfying about knowing that the entirety of my free time for the day was spent reading email and writing a journal entry. Such is adult life, I suppose, and I think I'd best be getting used to it...

Work was vaguely entertaining today. I finally got my email account going and found that it had been receiving messages since I left last summer. I had 719 emails about hirings and firings and problems with the water cooler just aching to be deleted. I also got my phone connected today. (This is a more shocking a statement when you realize that I spent all last summer trying in vain to do the very same thing -- I don't understand the IT department.) All this to say that I can now be reached at 613 731-8610, extension 1202 until around 3:30 pm each day. My voicemail greeting brings me to new levels of lame, but I think that's sort of the idea.

My phone comes complete with a handy guide to euphemisms, too: never say, "I can't do that," always say, "That's a tough one; let me see what I can do." There were countless other gems. I'll try to remember to write them down tomorrow.

Speaking of euphemisms (or a lack thereof), I was being introduced to one of my new coworkers and nepotism was immediately credited with getting me my job there. Admittedly, my father is just a department or two away, but I like to pretend that I got the job on my own merits, and it's difficult with people being honest around me.

And in equally disappointing news, I forgot to bring my Vise-Grip-brand pliers to work today. This prevented me from tearing the armrests off of my chair like the CTS-aggravating demons that they are. Tomorrow, then.

Up to today, I hadn't been socializing much with the people I know from my previous summers of working in the same department, but I started to get caught up on the gossip this afternoon. And it seems that I'm not the only one scratching my head at the state of my current project, which simply isn't ready to go live next week, and that needs a lot of backtracking if it's ever to be finished properly. It's reassuring to not be the only one wondering how these things make it through so many committees and still end up only vaguely functional and with countless logic-defying "features" tacked on.

In better news, discussions (at that part-time job of mine) from yesterday and today point to the Bran Van 3000 remix contest being ready to go live within a few days. I think it will probably end up launching early next week, but I haven't received confirmation as to a solid date. Also, I'm supposed to get all the elements of the Discosis artwork on a CD tomorrow, so the redesigned site should be up as early as Monday. No promises, mind you...

Well, this journal is pretty terrible, but it's almost 10:00 pm and I suspect that the stabbing pains in my left temple that have been causing me to wince all day long might be back if I don't lie down soon.

Three days employment down, seventy-seven to go...