sweasel.com

It pleases me to note that you still have an ol’ cow orker or two around to talk to, Weas.

The big question is: what nationality are the (shudder) Table People? Do they go home at night, or do they unfold little T-People blankets and lay down in a corner (out of traffic, of course) until their next shift?

Well, my brain may be slow, but at least it was wrong. Um…that didn’t come out right. Well, maybe it did.

I asked if they were data entry people or temps or something, but she thought they were software developers. The building kind of dead-ends down there, so if you aren’t going to visit the Table People, you really have no business being there. I skidaddled when I saw that.

Hm. I wonder why T-120 and T-136 don’t get chairs. Maybe they were bad. T-136 has got some sweet privacy, anyhow…might be worth standing up for.

Go for T136, Weas. Always good to have a wall at your back in a pinch. If you take 120, THEY can sneak up and attack you from all directions.

Hell, if you’re really good, go for 137 and let them OFFER you 136.

Once, for a short time that seemed like an eternity, I was a Table People. It was the most horrible experience of my life and I’m pretty sure I nearly had a nervous breakdown. With me though it’s hard to tell.

Brrr…I might could do it if I had headphones and a pile of brainless scut work to do. But if I had to think? I’d jump out of my skin.

When I started working for the company, there was still an ink-and-vellum draughting department. Damnation, was that Dickensian. Fifty giant oak drafting tables laid out like a checkerboard, with fifty draughtsmen on high stools. The supervisor used to walk between them all day. They’d ring handbells to mark the beginning and ending of breaktimes.

I didn’t work there, but we inherited some of their people when it went digital. Several in my department took home oak draughting tables when they broke the department up…those things cost thousands these days (and I’m sure they’re not of the same quality).

We held onto one last draughting board for as many years as they’d let us. We called it Binky.

BGG – I don’t think it affected you. I mean, Look at you now – a typical, healthy, garden variety deadly gas & bio-toxin expert. Hmmph! What could be more normal? 🙂

I always want to pronounce draught as drought. I can’t help it. But draft does look pretty puny on a page. No meat to it.

I go back and forward between “draft” and “draught” sometimes in the same sentence — which has nothing to do with Uncle B and everything to do with all those English novels I read growing up.

I still mentally pronounce “gaol” as “gay-all” though.

It’s always good to know that it can get worse, I guess.

My first day a couple of jobs ago, my new boss walked me back to my office, which was a converted warehouse/tech bench area, and pointed at the only desk in the room.

It was covered with someone else’s personal effects, family pictures, files, rollodex, memos, and a much doodled upon desk calender. “Oh, that stuff belongs to (brooding sociopathic creepy guy), we demoted him this morning, he’ll be your lead tech. He should be along any minute to collect his things…”

Heh. No Steamboat, I’m sure it didn’t affect me at all, bumping elbows with that fat guy next to me and listening to the chewing…and coughing…wheezing…sneezing. BTW this week I visited a vaccine production plant and a biodefense research center, so I’m all full up on paranoid for weeks to come. If I started blogging again I’d probably just scare people!

Well, you know sweasel, my husband has lots of Indians working at his company too. He was told by his bosses boss that they could get three of ‘them’ for one of him.

…oh, and they are software developers.

Hmm…which means they must pay them not too goodly. ‘Cause we ain’t rich.

Looks like the North Sea surge worries were for naught. Good.

..But the Dutch over on the continent got to try out their nifty sea-wall technology. It worked, assuming they can get it to open again later today.

The person in cubicle T-136 rather than sitting down, has to crouch naked in the stress position up against the partition wall with a large number 3 with sharp teeth hovering behind, like in the diagram of those naked chaps elsewhere on this site. It’s a tradeoff for the extra privacy, which let’s face it, is one worth making.

I never imagined that something as mind-numbingly trivial as the height of a person’s cubicle walls at some anonymous DullGrey Corp somewhere on the East Coast of the US would impact my life here in the mid-west so much.

This inability of Weasel to surf & publish in privacy is driving me to drink.

Hey, Weasel? If all the minions can collect enough donations to cover your salary for the next ~3 months (nov-feb roughly), would you then moon your employer a succinct “goodbye”, go home, and blog full-time until feb?

Yes, but are you right across from the receptionist who worries you have a case of the Mondays?

Corporate accounts payable, Nina speaking. Just a moment.

Heh. I forgot to thank you guys for recommending Office Space. Bought a copy from Amazon Born Again. I had somehow missed it before. Loved it.

I made Uncle B sit through it, but I think his Office Space years are too far behind him.