On Invitation Etiquette

Those of you who know my in real life already know that I view most of my at-work relationships as “undeveloped”. This is to say that, well, I don’t know most of my fellow employees at any depth, and we almost never socialize outside of work. I’m not really complaining about this, as I know that people have lives, commitments, etc., but this mention was more of a setup of the story that I’m about to tell you.

We have a guest from our Texas office working in my group this week. Basically, we have a shortage of people and a surplus of projects to complete in an insanely short amount of time — coupled with an ongoing production issue that refuses to go away. You know the drill. This person, in other words, is here to help both to get work done, and so that I don’t go completely insane.

Towards closing time, I was chatting with our visitor, and a friend of his — who is also a higher-up at my company — dropped by. Texanspeak ensued. Soon, invitations for drinks were extended. And then it dawned on me. I hadn’t been actually been invited to come along! Grrrr.

Granted, I’m not that much of a drinker. I have maybe a handful of drinks in a year. And I’ve been waking up at 4am to head to work (for the last two weeks or so), so I’m more than willing to depart work at the end of the day.

But there’s something to be said for etiquette, too. Is it just me, or is it a whee bit rude to invite someone (who is also a co-worker) to a social event if you don’t invite the other person who’s standing there? Or maybe I’m just too finicky.

All Set.

I just had a fascinating exchange with someone at work.

They: Nate, could you do this system task for us as soon as you could?

So, I did the task, and responded back through email as follows…

Me: All set.

Moments later, I received this response…

They: All set as in all done?

Mind you, I almost invoked a Jack Nicholson-like attitude from “A Few Good Men” and replied like so…

Me: Is there any other meaning of all set?

But I didn’t. Instead, I uttered a gallows laugh and wrote back with the following…

Me: All done.

I’m half expecting to receive this email response back…

They: All done as in all set?

But I haven’t seen it yet.

The Squeaky Wheel, The Grease, The Lecture

After last year’s exciting event of having the house built, which included buying new appliances and a countless number of other things, I developed somewhat large credit card bills. Granted, there are worse problems to have, but what sucked is that the credit card debt was somewhat unavoidable. Each month, I carve out part of my monthly budget and prune the debt a bit. My goal is to be done with the debt within the next 6-8 months. Let’s see how that goes.

In life, I’ve decided to follow a simple rule: “JUST ASK”. That is, if something gauls me, I try to bring it up, ask about it, whatever. For instance, I paid more dollars towards my credit card debt two days ago. Unfortunately, it took the bank two days to clear the funds (submitted online) and I was therefore “late” and incurred a charge. I hate late charges, in particular, because I try to pay the “big 3″ bills on time: mortgage, car, credit card. To ensure that I don’t have other “slip ups”, I have the remaining bills subtracted from my checking account directly.

This so-called late charge gnawed at me for the last day or so. I decided to send a query to my credit card company about it. In fact, they agreed that the late charge should be waived, and that the credit would appear on my next statement. Hurray for customer service! Squeak! Squeak!

After apologizing for the inconvenience, they proceeded to lecture me (via email) about the importance of, well, paying my bills on time. Ooookay. I guess that’s maybe something that they send — pre-canned — to anyone who gripes about late charges and their credit card product. But the message came across to me like some kind of Hitchcock treatment, what with the pleasant into, suspenseful middle, and unpleasant ending.

Flick Fly, Daniel’san!

If you pay attention to “The Karate Kid”, you could learn many important things, grasshopper. Bob Vila might make you think that it’s all about home improvement, but Mr. Miyagi makes you realize that it’s about home improvement and kicking someone’s ass with your mad karate skills.

It’s all been work, work, work lately. For whatever reason, my co-worker felt that we should all have chopsticks last week. Yeah, you know, not the song, but the wooden things. Decidedly, chopsticks are of a limited purpose. I tired of them earlier after I realized that “air drumming” to covers of Rush songs had grown tiresome. And besides, I was pissed off anyways, so even thinking of happy, geekboy, progressive rock wasn’t what I had in mind for the day.

Today, however, there was a fly in the office. This is actually a weird occurrence for us, because all of the windows in the building are hermetically sealed. In fact, I can’t think of another time that I’ve seen any kind of insect in the building. Sure, I’ve seen a spider or two, but spiders just “live places” and seemingly don’t exhibit the incorrigible behavior of flying aimlessly into a dwelling, then spending a few days bouncing against walls and closed windows before their untimely deaths.

So, suffice it to say, I was surprised when a fly buzzed by my ear. Instinctively, I swatted at it. But then, I gave up, and it was quiet for a few moments. Of course, the fly returned, and so did my instincts. But instead of trying to waft the fly out of the way with my hand, I grabbed the set of chopsticks and attempted to tweeze it out of the air just like Daniel LaRusso. Was I close? Did I snatch it out of the air? Would I become the next great karate master? No, no, and absolutely not.

Given my ineptitude at fly catching, I was getting frustrated by our friend, the house fly, as it flitted and flatted its way around my cubicle. Soon, I was practically staring it right in the eyes. I whipped up my hand, and made a flicking motion with my thumb and middle finger. And guess what? I KNOCKED THE FLY OUT OF THE AIR!

For moments, I watched it as it “sat” on the corner of my desk. I’d wondered if I’d killed it, so I blew some air on it. It didn’t move. Maybe it was just stunned? Finally, I came to the realization that some part of my body had touched a dirty, disgusting fly. I went to the bathroom and washed my hands. And when I returned? The fly was gone! Where could it have gone? Back to it’s fly leader? Did he have to confess that he’d been duped by a human? Or did I fall behind my desk and die there?

The Dog Days of Dating

My date and I had a get-together yesterday. It had been nearly a month, given both of our schedules, but in particular, my work (day job) and bookwriting (after-day job) schedule. It had been murder. In fact? It’s still murder. Call Captain Morgan; his rum is red!

As for yesterday, my date and her boy arrived at my home at about 2pm. Now, her boy is a pretty nice kid all the way around. The only thing is that he gets extremely antsy, and my home — it appears — hasn’t been configured in its fixtures as a dream dwelling for a 7-year old boy. It’s been configured as a dream dwelling for a 31-year old boy. You think that there isn’t a difference? Just ask the 7-year old. But seriously, the kid gets bored, and in a hurry. In the past, when he stayed for longer periods of time, we rented movies, video games, and procured other treats to keep him occupied while his mother and I chatted and “acted boring” in the other room.

Footnote: You know that a child is bored when he takes great pleasure in playing with the ice and water dispenser on your fridge (I didn’t think that it was possible to fit 200 ice cubes in a tiny glass until yesterday afternoon!), and helping himself to the contents of your freezer, while actually on a covert OP to figure out if you’ve got ice cream in there! Funny, he never seemed to pay any of those things much attention in the past!

The evening ended when the boy and my dog, Emerson, took to wrestling on the floor of the garage, at which time boy’s ears were bitten by dog, boy was stepped on by dog, dog refused to listen to me, tempers flared, and the evening was concluded in a draw. Why in the garage, you ask?

You see, the dog smells so bad that I refuse to bring him upstairs until he’s had a bath and I’ve had time to scour his crate with Pine-Sol, or maybe even fire. To enact a bath on Mr. Emerson, I’ll need time to fix the PVC pipe on the drain of the sink that I’d installed downstairs. There’s a small leak, and when you put a 50-pound pooch in the sink? It quickly becomes a big leak.

In the moments before my date and her boy left, she initiated a fascinating conversation with me, which I’ll editorialize/improvise below:

She: So, you and Emerson are in a routine, yes?
Me: Yes. Why?
She: Well, you take him out every morning?
Me: Yes. Why?
She: And every night when you get home, and once again before you go to bed, right?
Me: Yes. Why?
She: Because you wouldn’t dream of letting him go for three days without taking him out, right?
Me: Right. So?
She: Well, I expect that same kind of thing from you. Even if it’s just a check-in, maybe just to see what’s going on more often, like before you go to bed, when you get home, or whatever.
Me: Ummm, are you sure that you want to use my dog and his crate schedule as your point of reference?
She: Well, you get the idea.
Me: But, are you sure that there isn’t a better point of reference than the dog?

Hot Diggity Dick

Work has finally started hiring people again. In this case, they hired one system administrator type and another project management type. Of course, neither of these people actually works in my group. Both of these fellows I’d say are in their early to mid-40’s, and both had previously worked for the same company as I — while in different positions.

Interestingly, both of these gentlemen are a bit eccentric. One of them talks on the telephone almost incessantly (about matters clearly not related to work, unless “Tina? Tina!” is some form of project escalation code of which I’ve been previously unaware), and the other one asks an abundant amount of questions, generally followed with “so, we should meet about this?”. Let’s turn our attention to Dr. Phone, or as we’ll refer to him “Tina Tina”.

“Tina Tina”, I believe, may have made a pass at me the other day. Granted, he wasn’t offering me Pen-S that I’m aware of. The conversation went something like this.

Tina Tina: Well, it’s that time, Nathan Detroit.
Me: Eh?
Tina Tina: Nathan Detroit. Part of a good movie.
Me: Oh, uhh, right.
Tina Tina: Naaaathan Detroit.
Me: Yes, funny.
Tina Tina: Naaaaattthhaaaaan Detroit.
Me: Uh huh.

Now, I’ve heard the Nathan Detroit thing several times. My name is Nathan, so hearing references to Nathan this and Nathan that isn’t unheard of. Nathan Detroit, however, when used, is one of those things that seems to spiral out of control. Next thing you know, you hear “Nathan Detroit” being uttered from every corner of the room. It’s infectious… like The Clap.

I figured that “Tina Tina” would tire of Nathan Detroit, as he would probably need to make a phone call in a moment or so. But what happened next truly shocked me.

Tina Tina: Nathan Detroit, it’s my time to go.
Me: Oh, so soon?
Tina Tina: Yup, time to call it a day.
Me: Okay, well, have a good one!

“Tina Tina” turns on his heel and begins to leave, and then? I feel a hand on my shoulder. Suddenly, “Tina Tina” remarks to me:

“By the way, I really like your hot dog.”

What?

WHAT?

WHAT?!

WHAT?!?!?!

I laughed nervously, and nodded my head in agreement. Inside, I was having this dialog with myself.

Brain: “Tina Tina” just mentioned your hot dog.
Quiet voice: I know. I could swear that he just said that.
Brain: He did. Do you know what he was talking about?
Quiet voice: My hot dog, apparently.
Brain: Right, but do you know what he meant?
Quiet voice: Do you think that he was talking about that chain of hot dog stores?
Brain: Well, he only said, “hot dog”, so my guess is no.
Quiet voice: Noooooooo!

Pen-S

While sitting in the office of a (female) co-worker today, a prisoner of a conference call, I saw the most interesting object sitting on their desk. Actually, it was a cylinder-shaped vessel, approximately 8″ in height, and had stenciled writing on the side. And out of the corner of my eye, I read the lettering: “PENIS”.

“WHAT?!”, my brain exclaimed to itself. I could feel my eyes squinting, my brows furowing. Penis.

Penis?

My mind began to analyze the possiblities of a penis holder. Was it appropriate for the office? Was King Missile all that prophetic? And how would the penis-bearer urinate if they forgot to remove their penis in the penis holder, and were trapped in a meeting without time to retrieve it?

Oh, wait, no. Then I read the insignia again. The lettering was wrapped across lines, and it actually read:

Pe
ns

Oh.

“Pens”.

I guess that what it boils down to is:

You’ve got your penis.
You’ve got your Enos.
You’ve got your brothers Duke.
And if I catch your penis
writing,
I think I’m gonna puke.

Cynicism and The Womb

Professional Audio Engineers (you know, those people who work/create sounds/do whatever else during recording sessions in recording studios) often refer to their “special place” as “the womb”. I can’t tell the exact location of “the womb”, as I’ve been sworn to secrecy. I can’t tell you specifics about NibNob, either. But I can tell you about my specific implementation of the womb.

System Administrators have a tendency, well, to get totally hammered by the people that they work with. When I say “hammered”, I don’t mean “harassed”. When I say “hammered”, I mean bent over in front of a tree, banjo music heard playing in the background … just like Ned Beatty. In recent days, upon deciding to stay on with my current company, I’ve got to admit that things haven’t gotten better. In fact, I wouldn’t be exaggerating if I said that they hadn’t gotten worse, busier, and everything that I was (re)assured that they wouldn’t be — after the “transition” to my “new job”.

That aside, I believe there are specific parallels that can be drawn between system administrators and professional audio engineers. The most glaring trait we share is that, well, people attack our tender anuses until we’re inclined to be irritated by anyone/anything, and it’s also the case that good system administrators always believe that the current implementations are vile, dumb, and shitty, and could always be done better. Don’t believe me? Ask Mixerman.

As for me, in fear of being unemployed, feeling optimistic that I can turn this situation around, needing the challenge of actually staying at a job for three years, and all of those things: I devised a workaround. I’ve discovered my own womb. For me? It’s a room that’s card accessible only to system administrators. It doesn’t allow food or drink, but it’s a place where you can not be seen or bothered. I’m home, Mother. I’m home.

As for cynicism, well, I have evolved into a cynic. I’ve realized that my career choice has rendered me psychologically incapable of being anything else. I argue, discuss, lament, politicize, criticize, stress, mitigate, explain, and all kinds of other things on a daily basis, several times a day. This leaves me in the following state of mind:

“I don’t see the glass as half empty. I don’t see the glass as half full. I do, however, see myself breaking the glass over your skull, since you’re making things worse.”

Free ASS

I’ve decided to pimp my ass, but not in a sexual way. Okay, no.

I’ve been laughing at the notion of the movie “Gigli”. It’s not so much that I have any particular opinion about Ben (bad actor) and Jen (boot and boobs do not a good actress make) in as much as I can spot a terrible move from afar. Sure, I got a kick out of “Ishtar”, and I thought that “Showgirls” was sublime, but “Gigli” seems to be missing the most important ingredient of cult classics: irony.

The funny thing about “Gigli” is that with this slew of bad — no, awful — press, it still made $4.3M last weekend! Wow! But then I realized that all of the bad press might actually turn the movie into something of a sleeper hit. Sure, nearly $55M was spent in the making of this movie, but I’m inclined to believe that it might actually make $20M as a side effect of bad reviews alone! Figuring that the studio will only be $30M in the hole by the time this movie is removed from theaters will be something of a miracle! And my guess is that another round of bad publicity will surface once this film comes out on video.

Somehow, the worst movie ever will be subsidized by $30M worth in rentals. In the end, sheer masochism and perverse curiosity could elevate this gem to a break even proposition. Perhaps, someday college students will even attend midnight showings of the film, dressed in costume, throwing handfuls of rice.

Banjo Center and the Semantics of a “Sweet Deal”

I’m beginning to understand why professional musicians and (audio) engineers laugh at music stores like Guitar Center, thusly giving them names like “Banjo Center”. The laughing (at) is not so much for the product that Guitar Center sells in as much as it’s a scathing critique of the “culture” that Guitar Center embraces. It’s the mind-numbing approach of their sales staff, and will to do customer service, or lack thereof. It’s the knowledge that places like Banjo Center exist because better music stores would be also be exclusive, and thus couldn’t survive in a market where selling in volume is key.

Unfortunately for us in New England, we have very few choices when it comes to buying music gear. There’s Daddy’s “We’re not a front for the mob; we swear!” Junky Music. And there’s Banjo Center. Berklee College of music has a decent repair shop nearby. But aside from Daddy’s and Banjo Center, we don’t have many choices when it comes to selection, quality gear, proximity to urban centers, and overall lack of bullshit. Mars Music, a decent music chain, went under at some point in late-2001 or early-2002. There are other independent music stores, like Mercenary Audio that’s near Cape Cod. Unfortunately, these stores can’t help you when you’re in a pinch, and don’t want to drive 100 miles.

The worst part of Banjo Center has got to be its lack of a return policy. Now, I can understand why some pieces of music gear cannot be returned. That is, there are unscrupulous people out there who’d buy music gear, use it, then return it for a refund. I get the point. But imposing a no-refund policy on almost all gear is a tremendous pain in the balls.

Take, for instance, the recording gear that I’d bought a few weeks ago. Ira was coming into town for a hike, and when he visited me we’d planned on putting more time into the Jarvik-11 sessions. Since I’d modified my technique for drum mic’ing, I needed to get some new gear. And judging by Ira’s lively drumming, I also needed to get a new compressor. Solution? Well, I had to go to stupid Banjo Center.

Unfortunately, I overbought. I had an extra mic, and I also had a few cables that needed to be returned. Since I couldn’t get a refund, I would need to get store credit, which I’d then use to pick something else out. Okay, fine. I “needed” to get a vocal processor, so I called Banjo Center to check availability.

Me: Hello, do you have the blahblahblah vocal processor in-stock?
Clerk dude: Well, my man, let me check.
Me: Uhh, okay.
Clerk dude: Okay, guy, yeah we have one. But it’s used.
Me: Oh.
Clerk dude: Well, fella, do you want it?
Me: Does it come with a manual and power cable?
Clerk dude: Funny you should ask that. I had a client come in last night and we were going to make a sale, but they backed out at the last minute because we couldn’t find these things.
Me: And did you find these things?
Clerk dude: I don’t know. Let me check. Yup, we just found them. Why not come in? We can make you a super-sweet deal on this.

A few days later, I brought my exchanges to Banjo Center, and went looking for my vocal processor. It took clerk dude a little while to find it, and its manuals. In believe that it was along the lines of 45 minutes. Under other circumstances, I would’ve walked out. But today? I had exchanges. It was necessary, against my preference, to go to Banjo Center at all!