Octopus Overlords

Nope, just waiting on the new one. BIL took the old one out last weekend.

I've come to the conclusion that I need a new vessel to carry my brain around. This old one is worn and obsolete. As it's a one owner maybe I can get a good trade in on it.
Maybe a shiny new metal one that gets good gas mileage.

dbt1949 wrote:I've come to the conclusion that I need a new vessel to carry my brain around. This old one is worn and obsolete. As it's a one owner maybe I can get a good trade in on it.
Maybe a shiny new metal one that gets good gas mileage.

I heard it was owned by a little old lady who only drove it to church on Sundays. Is that true?

Isgrimnur wrote:It's a little hard to cook dinner when there's a large hole where the range should be.

Isgrimnur wrote:Nope, just waiting on the new one. BIL took the old one out last weekend.

I was really trying to figure out your ED-related euphemism until I saw the second post.

It's not the Random Randomness thread for nothing.

GreenGoo wrote:

Paingod wrote:It felt like she was ramping up to start attacking an article on erectile dysfunction because it didn't give equal read time to women's sexual issues.

Given everything else you have written, it sounds like that was exactly what she was doing. Only you know whether she deserves the benefit of the doubt.

That's exactly where it went. I chatted with her via email, and after three emails it bounced from being angry that women's sexual issues aren't researched enough by a predominantly male-driven pharmaceutical industry to the slavery and sex trade perpetrated by men in third world countries. A big part of why I don't engage her in discussions that even graze human sexuality is that it's like a black hole topic that spirals into itself worse and worse until she's angry that I don't care enough. It's not like she's actively doing anything except being angry. I've tried to get her to join groups or start one where her outrage could be put to use - sex slavery is horrible and should be stopped; volunteer for an organization that works against it or something.

GreenGoo wrote:if she is so hostile to men why bother getting married? To torture you?

I ask her the same thing sometimes, and she really can't answer that except to say that she's not interested in women in that way, making men the only choice.

There's a book called The White Queen. It was made into a TV series. The lead writer on the series is named Emma Frost.

That's random.

Paingod wrote: I ask her the same thing sometimes, and she really can't answer that except to say that she's not interested in women in that way, making men the only choice.

She could choose celibacy. She could choose to be alone with her misery. She could choose not to make others miserable just because she is. There's no rule you need to date things you hate, let alone marry them.

coopasonic wrote:That's random.

I try to stay topic-appropriate where I can.

Just saw someone at work dressed as the Prince from Katamari Damacy. Sadly he was not pushing around a big ball of garbage.

pr0ner wrote:Just saw someone at work dressed as the Prince from Katamari Damacy. Sadly he was not pushing around a big ball of garbage.

Did you look really closely? maybe he is just bad at the game and hadn't gotten beyond the hairball stage.

Isgrimnur wrote:There's a book called The White Queen. It was made into a TV series. The lead writer on the series is named Emma Frost.

/edit - got the wrong reference. Fixed in my brain now.

My costume for Halloween is a lazy bum.
I look the part pretty well, I must say.

Five work days this week, four next week (Veterans Day) and three the following week before my full week vacation that will cover the majority of BGGCon, and lead into Thanksgiving, a stretch of eleven days off.

We are forced shutdown the last two weeks in December, so that's where my vacation is going. I get 2 days at Thanksgiving too. It's a long stretch from July 4th to that Christmas shutdown.

Isgrimnur wrote:Five work days this week, four next week (Veterans Day) and three the following week before my full week vacation that will cover the majority of BGGCon, and lead into Thanksgiving, a stretch of eleven days off.

For me:
4, 4, 2, 3, 4, 4, 4, 3, 0, 4, 5, 4
...and then it is back to regular 5 day weeks. Gotta use those days somehow.

I would have to not take a vacation day for the entirety of next year to end up "banking"* five hours of vacation time. Of course, they mandate that we take a full-week vacation at some point during the year, so that's not a concern.

I won't get another boost to accruals until I make VP or another two years, whichever comes first.

*Our holiday bank allows you to overflow up to 80 hours. You can only cash out once per year in 40-hour increments, and the result is 50% pay for those hours. Everyone worth their salt attempts to avoid having to use it, and we have a couple long-timers earning around the 7-8 hour/pay period mark.

Fuck that noise. I want about 250 paid vacation days a year at a job with job security that pay enough to live on and then I'd use every last one of those days.

We have no holiday bank. I lost about 8 days of vacation one year. I vowed never do that again and since then I have also vowed that I will not come back after vacation and work 12 hour days every day until "I am caught up."

coopasonic wrote:

pr0ner wrote:Just saw someone at work dressed as the Prince from Katamari Damacy. Sadly he was not pushing around a big ball of garbage.

Did you look really closely? maybe he is just bad at the game and hadn't gotten beyond the hairball stage.

The elevator was closing on him, so I couldn't tell.

Isgrimnur wrote: *Our holiday bank allows you to overflow up to 80 hours. You can only cash out once per year in 40-hour increments, and the result is 50% pay for those hours. Everyone worth their salt attempts to avoid having to use it, and we have a couple long-timers earning around the 7-8 hour/pay period mark.

They attempt to avoid having to use vacation? Or the cash out policy? Not sure what "it" refers to here.

Hopefully the cash out option. Getting paid at 50% is bad.

On the other hand I try to get my wife to use her employers 90% cash out. She only works 3 days a week so rarely takes vacation days and is always at risk of hitting the 360 hour vacation bank cap with her 18 years of service.

coopasonic wrote:

Isgrimnur wrote:Five work days this week, four next week (Veterans Day) and three the following week before my full week vacation that will cover the majority of BGGCon, and lead into Thanksgiving, a stretch of eleven days off.

For me:
4, 4, 2, 3, 4, 4, 4, 3, 0, 4, 5, 4
...and then it is back to regular 5 day weeks. Gotta use those days somehow.

I'm at:
3, 0, 5, 2, 5, 5, 5, 5, 0, 4, 5, 3.

That will leave me at 78 hours annual leave and 828 hours sick leave.

I'll be hitting 8 hours per pay period of annual leave (on top of the standard 4 hours sick leave) come the middle of July. I'll be entering the realm of use or lose leave here before long.

Correct, avoid using the bank/cash-out system.

coopasonic wrote:Hopefully the cash out option. Getting paid at 50% is bad.

On the other hand I try to get my wife to use her employers 90% cash out. She only works 3 days a week so rarely takes vacation days and is always at risk of hitting the 360 hour vacation bank cap with her 18 years of service.

Yep, you were right (beaten by Izzy), because that's a crappy cash out number.

Only time you can cash out annual leave with the feds is upon retirement. They pay out 100% then, at least.

Our payroll lady is over 30 years tenure. Aside from other uses, she takes every other Friday off in an effort to keep her levels within range.

Isgrimnur wrote:Our payroll lady is over 30 years tenure. Aside from other uses, she takes every other Friday off in an effort to keep her levels within range.

One of my retired former coworkers would disappear sometime between December 1 and 8, and return sometime early/mid January every year.

She also had over 3,000 hours of sick leave applied to her pension calculations.

I just hugged a dinosaur.

Zarathud wrote:I just hugged a dinosaur.

Was it this one?

Yes. It was green, but had no cheerleaders. Because then I would have hugged the cheerleaders.

dbt1949 wrote:Fart while cooking did we?

OK... this one I did laugh out loud to.

Moving to an open office format. Now I'm thanking my lucky stars they Miltoned me.

LordMortis wrote:Moving to an open office format. Now I'm thanking my lucky stars they Miltoned me.

It's remarkably difficult to dub off when your screen is visible to dozens of people. I tend to argue that I need a corner or my back to a wall because I may be looking at sensitive company information at any given time (anything from accounting info to network security) and my screen isn't a public viewing zone.

Giving my dog a tripe treat right before I eat was not a good idea.

LordMortis wrote:Moving to an open office format. Now I'm thanking my lucky stars they Miltoned me.

Workplace 2.0 coming my way as well.

Forecast? Hilarity.

LordMortis wrote:Moving to an open office format.

This is what happens when Extroverts run the workplace...because only they like the open office format.

Smoove_B wrote:

LordMortis wrote:Moving to an open office format.

This is what happens when Extroverts run the workplace...because only they like the open office format.

It enables densification. All those walls take up precious space.

I was just thinking of the arcade games I played that were based on movies and entertainment back in the early 80s. I can only think of 3 though right now.

Krull
Tron
Journey Escape

Really good machines for the fun. Tron was the best of course. Been watching stuff on Krull today thinking back to those days.

It's also how you drive introverts insane...and away from the job.

Unrelated, but we were watching a TV show the other night and someone unsuccessfully tried using a garrote, so much so that the intended victim escaped. I commented to the wife why the attacker failed and noted how he should have positioned his arms and then spun himself around to "hang" the victim on his back if he really wanted to be sure. There was some awkward silence as the wife wanted to know why I knew that. There is no good answer here, but I did think of you coop.

It's not extroverts, I don't think, that is the problem.

"the problem", I think is:

1) Open offices appeal to the young way of doing things and corporations want to appear young in lieu of being contemporary.

2) Open offices is conducive to a collaborative marketing environment and who sells modern corporations on the one right way(tm) to run modern corporations? Collaborative marketers. Probably young collaborative marketers. Not accountants and computer techs and engineers or even program managers who aren't part of a program management team working for one customer who were originally put in to cube farms because cube farms are less overhead than offices.

I think the real reason behind open office is that they won't talk about is that in drone based society, it promotes the panopticon.

I think we need a 21st century Demming to right 20th century Demming gone off the rails.