post

Oh where, oh where have I gone? I have often said, though quite possibly never in this forum but quite often to actual live people, that modern technology has enabled so much connectivity that it's almost impossible to fall off the network. I remember saying it a bunch as I prepared to leave the Bay Area for Farmington. It was a way to inform people that I wasn't moving to some shanty town without a Best Buy. My wit and banter were only going to be a few screechy modem sounds away and that I was still, very much on the grid. But apparently, laziness is a really good way to try to fall off.

I kept saying to myself that I'm going to blog again. I've been saying it for the entire month. It's been nothing but a pair of pitiful, stopgap entries. And the link from August 11 was only good for a week. So that barely qualifies as an entry unless you saw the article and accompanying picture. For those of you who missed it, I will try to get some pictures of it from someone at work because it really is quite smashing, so to speak.

Now that I'm sitting here pecking away with my digits, it's all coming back to me. The initial trepidation is gone. There's nothing to this. It's just a matter of saying that I can do this and that I will do this and that, gosh darn it, people like me! If only I could muster up the same courage to do something about the 170 e-mails in my inbox. And that's after I've already sorted through the filler.

Anyway, work is work is work is work. (You have to read that with a subtly different emphasis on each occurrence of work or else the meaning is lost.) I think I'll have more to say on it in a couple days. Apparently my name was mentioned at today's staff meeting (in hushed tones of respect of course) on what they would be doing with me. If this issue sounds familiar to some of you it should. And if it seems like an old issue, it is. This issue has been dragging on and on mostly as a result of changes in managers, other field engineers, transfers, people quitting, hedge fund activity, and Pluto's demotion from planethood. Frankly, there has been no point in pressing for action on my part because either way, I'm fairly certain I'll get what I want.

Speaking of people quitting, my fabled mentee is quitting. I wonder if he'll have to pay back (read: have his last pay check deducted from to compensate for) his moving expenses since it's been less than a year. I'm not surprised by this, though I am more intrigued by the recent improvement in the quality of his work. Since none of you know him, there's no point in discussing this further, especially since many people may have already heard my, uh, cogent criticisms when I was in Los Altos last month. That and I ranted a bunch at lunch with one of the other field engineers to get most of it out of my system. Apparently, I'm not welcome at that eatery anymore.

In other news, I've been sick for the last couple days and it hasn't been running its normal course. And now it's culminated in me losing my voice, or at least large portions of it.

At work, I like to joke that I have passive-aggressive tendencies. In fact, I like to joke about myself in ways that, if what I said was actually true, would be very alarming. That has to make you wonder about some of the more unconventional things I've ever said (mostly in person, not this blog) and the curious air of first-hand experience on topics I presumably know little about. Huh. Anyway, since passive-aggressive really doesn't mean what I actually want it to mean, a better phrase would be aggressive-passive-aggressive. At times, I like to engage in passive-aggressive behavior (largely due to my teen angst) and then ratchet it up to aggressive borderline hostile behavior (largely for the comedic value). In the end, it's all quite interesting to see the subtle ballet of responses.

And yes, I really do have a problem with Best Buy. It's a moral issue.