A Bit Of Fluff

No picture today as Blogger is being evil and not working properly.

I don't know about you, but I have a hard time watching extended coverage of tragedy these days. I'm sure it's due to the influx of 24 hr. news networks that need to fill time. We get tons of repetition and often pointless speculation. To that end, here's a break from painful reality.

A couple of days ago I was in receiving and had the door open because we were getting a food delivery. There is a service road that runs behind our building that far too many people treat like their own little side street. I was on the phone when some old guy just comes walking into my receiving area. I'm sure I gave him the what-the-frak look. I asked him if I could help him. He crankily asked why there was a truck blocking the road.
Well, dumb ass, that would be because he's making a delivery using the road designed for delivery vehicles. Okay, that's not exactly what I said, but it was close. He wants to know when it would be leaving. I took a guess of anywhere from 5-15 minutes. I once again pointed out that it being a service road, it was not uncommon for there to be trucks in the middle of it. Asshole had to back out all the way to the Hometown Buffet side parking lot which gave me a little bit of sunshine in my day.

THE STREAK HAS BEEN BROKEN!
For the first time in 10 years, I did not have my "attitude problem" mentioned in my yearly review at work. You may ask, how did this happen? Answer: last year, after getting bitched at for "not supporting company policies" I decided to try an experiment. I stopped talking at managers meetings. I know I have mentioned how little I say. Well, it was done on purpose. The issue seemed to stem from my voicing my concerns and objections to some of the bone headed ideas that come down the corporate pipeline. Strangely, I was under the impression that part of the point of the mgr. meeting was to fully discuss the policies, procedures, goals, etc. of the company.
I know now I was wrong. I was ticked off that I was being punished for doing something I thought should be desired. It wasn't like I ran around the store yelling out "boy, this new procedure for processing magazine returns makes no sense and will ultimately be changed in 6 months when the guy who came up the idea leaves the company..." And, it wasn't like I didn't do my job or didn't do the procedures, etc. (or some slight variation of them) even though they may have been completely idiotic. Nope, I just didn't perform like a trained seal/cheerleader.
I find it both funny and sad that my lack of involvement was praised not once, but four times in my review. I am the exact same person as I was last year except for this one thing. First mgr. meeting after my review, I uttered about 2 sentences. Can't wait for my gold star.

Speaking of the company, I think I mentioned we were being investigated for stock option fraud. Well, the special committee has submitted their findings and because the screw ups involved many people and didn't benefit any one person or small group of select people, it was determined the co. wasn't committing fraud. But, we are full of idiots up top apparently. Seems that our stock option dating was screwed for a couple of reasons. The people who were doing it were lower level people who didn't actually know what they were doing and the CFO wasn't a part of the process. And, we were "back dating" stock options in all sorts of weird ways 'cuz someone told us we could. Oh, and we were essentially falsifying minutes from meetings.
Not surprisingly, the committee recommended the CFO actually be a part of this whole process (crazy I know) and we have some people involved that aren't members of the Board of Directors. Plus, we have to change certain policies, etc.
Once again, lack of communication is the key to evil.

Finally, three quick things:
My fave comic book writer, Brian K. Vaughan had his first Lost episode air tonight. I enjoyed it. I'm guessing the comic book references were his, but the general vibe of the show was very much in his style (even though he co-wrote this ep).
The Pres. has had 5 4-star generals turn down the War Czar position. The name of the position has been changed. I wonder if we'll see a listing for Execution Manager on HotJobs?
The new NIN freakin' rocks and it gave me an "oh shit!" moment. The top of the disc is covered with a treatment that reacts to heat. I'd heard something about it, but mistakenly thought it was going to be on the front of the case, not the cd itself. I was completely surprised when the cd that was black when I stuck it into my cd player in the car popped out white with binary code all over it!!!! My love for Trent Reznor has grown exponentially.