fox

My grandmother (side note: before he met my mother's parents, my father had never known anyone who hadn't liked FDR; in fact he had not known there were such people) is unimpressed by Sarah Palin. My mother reports that she says McCain may have some qualities that would make him a good president, but judgment is clearly not one of them. (She's voting in New York, so she's not so important of a swing voter, but she has a sister in Indiana. I encouraged my mother to sound out her aunt on the subject asap. [g])
The days are getting shorter here in big enough increments that it's obvious to me from, like, one week to the next. I find this odd, because I remember noticing that sort of thing when I lived Much Further North (Oxford is on approximately the same latitude as Calgary. Latitude-and-climate-bingo is a fun game, incidentally. Cleveland, where I grew up, is about level with Barcelona, but I don't think they have our winters).
My place is almost entirely unpacked and moved-into, which is v. exciting for me.

That's all I've got, actually, because now I'm at work and I forgot that I was going on a field trip today, so the whole shape of the day has changed. :-)

i was so ... awake

I was damn near falling asleep at my desk, so I e-mailed myself a bunch of work and came home. My reasoning, and

wordplay's and her office-mate's, was that at work when I need a break I get distracted by mindless who-knows-what for long periods, but at home, when I need a break from the work, I can pack a box, and when I need a break from packing, I can do some work. Much more productive.

First, though, I'm going to close my eyes for half an hour, because see above re: falling asleep at desk. Oy.

i was so ... sleepy

Most of the people I work for are not here. Others are waiting for answers to some questions before proceeding with various tasks. Bottom line, I have very, very, very little to do. There is some non-work work I can and will do in a moment, but beyond that, here I am.

I charge you all with entertaining me. Rec me things. Get a game of hangman going. Anything. Anything at all.

i was so ... bored

This morning, the sound of the ice battering my windows woke me at about 4:30 am.

I then got up at the regular time and found that the university was on a two-hour delay (but not closed for the day, damn them). I went back to bed for two hours.

When I got up again, I thought pretty hard about just calling off and working from home, but then I thought, nah, the last time I tried to work from home because I didn't feel great and the weather kind of sucked, my boss kind of made a face and guilted me into coming in. So this morning I sucked it up and went in. I was the only one there, of course, until another boss-type came in an hour or so later.

But somehow I had the most productive day I've had in a long time.

And then I got my new prescription. Hooray.

i was so ... tired

I am indeed much more alert this morning. Per my prediction, yesterday was the worst day of the cold; also, I am not singing the concert whose rehearsals begin this evening, so I will go home after work and put away the things I didn't put away last night, do laundry, etc. Today in between work tasks I will arrange payment of my bills, try to sort out my calendar, make some shopping lists (!), and so on.

Spring cleaning comes early over here, when a person is recovering from the ick. :-D

Forward.

i was so ... good

So I was out sick yesterday. I missed a meeting at which my attendance was absolutely not necessary.

This morning, I had scheduled a meeting for 9am, which I would normally never, ever do, but it was the only free slot in the calendar of one of the two critical attendees. I got up early!, and got to work by 8:30, so I wouldn't be arriving at or after the beginning of my meeting -- and not too long after I got here, I got a message from that attendee saying she couldn't come after all. There is no point in having the meeting without her, and rescheduling has been a pain (but we're on for tomorrow afternoon).

This afternoon, there was supposed to be another meeting with self and two other other people ... one of whom is out sick today. And was apparently already planning not to be here tomorrow. When there is a meeting with of the same people who were supposed to meet today, and which depends on today's meeting -- so there's no point in having tomorrow's meeting if we can't have today's meeting, but if everybody was going to be here, we could at least have had today's meeting tomorrow and rescheduled tomorrow's meeting, instead of rescheduling both.

Bottom line: I've got about 45 minutes of work to do today, two cancelled meetings, and very little else to do. I might take a long lunch and buy some pants. I will definitely make some

yuletide progress.

i was so ... dude.

Work today: do not want.

I'm ready for another break, please. This one was full of driving; I want the kind where I sleep as long as I want and get out of bed if and only if I feel like it. Bonspiel this weekend, so it can't happen then, but I'll pencil that in for the weekend of the 8th, mkay?

i was so ... tired

Dear research-people senior to me:

Okay, I know there are sound files. Trust me, I know -- I spent months and months transcribing them. So there are also transcripts. There are also, don't forget, notes that you took during the interviews. That's especially helpful, because in some cases either the subjects refused to be audio-recorded or the recorder just crapped out (whether you realized it or not), so sometimes the notes are all we've got. I've helpfully named the documents using the same conventions for all three types of file, Name.mp3 for audio; Name-transcript-xxx.doc for transcripts, where xxx is the initials of whoever did the transcribing; and Name-XX-recyes.doc for notes, where XX is your initials, whichever of you took the notes, and the final tag is "recyes" if there is a recording and "recno" if there isn't.

So why, why, why, please, are you telling me you've looked everywhere and can't find the transcripts for an interview whose notes file has "recno" in its name? No recording, no transcript, right? That's not even complex logic.

sigh,
Fox

And then I spend fifteen minutes not understanding why I get no results when I try to create a supercategory containing everything in each of two existing categories ... because I've been using the AND operator. Well, I want THAT to contain THIS1 and THIS2, so look, the word "and" is right there, isn't it? Yeah. Did I mention that there is not a single item that appears in both categories?

You see the trouble, of course. And so, eventually, did I. I'm just glad that I realized my own idiocy before I went and asked someone else why the supercategory thing wasn't working.

i was so ... embarrassed

So the task I've been on for what seems like the past hundred years on this project is transcription of interviews and focus groups for this project. There have been five researchers conducting these, and I've fobbed off most of the interviews on my minions, because they're shorter and easier (one interviewer and one subject); the focus groups have usually about four subjects (though one memorable one had 18; I did not even attempt to keep track of them - normally I number the subjects, though this is not strictly necessary, but in that instance I called them all "subject"). Each interviewer's sessions are characterized by different features. Two of the interviewers (the two who spoke the quietest, as it happened) didn't do very many; the majority of the recordings belong to the other three.

One tends to speak very quickly, and also makes student subjects feel comfortable and relaxed (which is good!) so that they have little compunction about talking all at once (which is very, very bad).

One tends to have good rapport with officers and teachers (which is good), and to demonstrate this with occasional displays of how well he speaks their jargon, which is not always actually as well as he thinks (which is just annoying and a waste of time).

And one, who ironically is the one I get along with best in person, speaks clearly enough that I can understand her and seems to set the subjects at ease, but has the infuriating tendency to confirm that she understands the subject's point by repeating it. I mean, I know there are discourse markers and politeness strategies that involve this, and it wouldn't do to misunderstand the subject's point; I get it. And the first researcher, the fast-talking one, she did some of that too. But I think she rephrased more? Because this one, I mean seriously, they will say something, and she will say the same thing.

A: Tell me about your shoes.
B: My shoes are brown, and they lace up.
A: So you're wearing brown shoes that lace up?
B: Yes.

The subjects don't seem to be frustrated by this, but it's making me crazy. This is a 44-minute transcript, and I swear it could be half an hour if there weren't all this repetition. I like her a lot, but damn.

(I will now spare you all the trouble of being Extremely Clever by posting the first comment myself.)

i was so ... frustrated

E-mail from Immediate Superior: "I will be out this a.m. to look after my wife, who is sick." So, memo to me: yes, people are sometimes not well, and taking time away from work in these instances is -- surprise! -- not inherently irresponsible.

There are a number of factors contributing to the fact that I suspect I will never, ever be really comfortable with this.

On the one hand, there have been a couple of times -- ninth grade was one; my second year in my first job was another -- when, for reasons absolutely having to do with my health, I missed enough days of school or work to do pretty genuine damage. In high school, I fell behind in at least one class and had serious trouble catching up; at work, I spent all my leave and had to take a couple days here and there of leave without pay. I wasn't wrong to stay home when I did, but if I'd got what was going on sorted out sooner, I wouldn't have been in that fix, and of course I'm not eager to be in such a fix again, despite the fact that I haven't been fourteen in more than half a lifetime and I'm in a job now where (a) vacation and sick time don't come out of the same balance, (b) there is plenty of each, and (c) I'm not paid by the hour, so LWOP is not really in the cards anyway. Doesn't matter: the once-bitten, twice-shy hindbrain is nervous.

On the other hand, my parents were public school teachers who, once we were old enough to be left alone, had to be really sick before they stayed home from work, because it was so often so much easier to just go in and suffer than it would have been to arrange for someone to cover for them.

So my sense of the standards of illness sufficient (I started with "necessary", so you see) to keep a person at home and of the consequences of staying away from work are probably skewed.

None of which really makes me feel any better.

In any event, here I am at work today, not dead. Huzzah.

[eta: Of course, the boss's e-mail rather highlights another facet of the whole sick-day thing, which is that I am single and live alone and therefore have nobody taking care of me when I am sick, which is normally no big deal but a serious deficiency when it would be helpful to have someone taking care of me. On the other hand, this may drive a person back to work sooner. Who knows.]

i was so ... sick

to: respondent
from: Fox
re: your questionnaire, with a series of questions asking for an answer on a scale from 1-6, on which you answered 4 "agree somewhat" for every. single. one.

Wouldn't it have been easier for both of us if you had just not returned a questionnaire at all?

i was so ... annoyed

My team:

1. Supervisory boss-type person A, who doesn't actually do research work on the project
2. Supervisory boss-type person B, who also doesn't actually do research work on the project
3. Project Manager, who keeps us focused on deadlines and whatnot
4. Primary Investigator
5. Researcher 1
6. Researcher 2
7. senior research-type person we'll call Researcher 3
8. self
9. whatever minions I can rake up from time to time when we can afford to pay them

#1 and #2 do not, as you see, do research work on the project. Neither does #3. #4 has a four-month-old baby at home and may not yet be back to 100% employment after family leave. #6 is on vacation and will follow this with a year-long "leave of absence" for a visiting-professor gig somewhere else (scare quotes because nobody thinks she'll actually come back from this). #7 is divided among several projects, as is almost everybody here.

#5 just announced that he's taken a job in the private sector and will be leaving October 12.

We see that this leaves ... well, me. And the occasional minions, who can be helpful but who sometimes need enough training in whatever they're helping me do that it would frankly be faster to do it myself. (This is not the case at the moment.) I am assured that everyone all the way up to the tip-top knows that this project needs to be completely re-staffed. I am not, however, reassured. In fact I'd like to go somewhere and hit my head against something hard for a few minutes and then cry.

Fortunately, I have recognized that this reaction is at least 50% due to the fact that it is lunch time. The transcription I am working on is slightly more than half done, which is good, because it's a bear. I will now make a sandwich and drink some soda and read Carolyn Hax's chat. Thank god.

i was so ... worried

(ahem.)

WOO!

i was so ... ecstatic

(Actually, I know exactly why, so never mind. I further suspect I am not the only one.)

It is the middle of August. Except for the fact that I haven't sent out a flier, I'm not actually all that far behind on planning the Inaugural. I don't have a house manager or (more crucially) a drawmaster yet, but an awful lot of people I've been e-mailing have been slow to get back to me -- the thing about everybody in this town being on vacation all at the same time, I guess. Whatever, I know rationally that it will all be fine.

The important things are, in descending order of importance, curling and eating/drinking. In curling, it's good ice and a good draw. In eating/drinking, it's good (and plentiful) food and a well-stocked bar. If I have all of this, it counts as being a good event. But! Apparently there was a stretch (note: while I was away, heh) where all we had at our spiels was curling, and the idea is that this should be remedied before we get a reputation for boring bonspiels. On the other hand, anything that eats into ice time and/or requires everyone in the warm room to shut up and pay attention to something they might have trouble seeing or hearing can frustrate people who'd rather hang out with their fellow curlers. Plus, it's expensive to bring in a music or comedy act or whatever (that some non-zero number of people aren't going to notice or care about). It's even more expensive to bring in a DJ, and besides we don't have room for a dance floor. In short: the entertainment question is a big vicious circle. It just goes round and round, which is (as we all know) what makes it vicious.

And I'm fretting to the point where I'm losing sleep. Last night I had a dream in which the floor of the warm room was swarming with fire ants. Then someone came in from the ice shed and the things retreated, like grease floating on water when you touch the surface with a drop of soap. We used a vacuum cleaner on reverse (or something like that) to blow the fire ants out the door, where they stayed and did not come back in. This may also have to do with the fact that I got a note yesterday that exterminators are coming to my apartment tomorrow? But in the dream it was very clearly our warm room, and the dream was about Inaugural-related anxiety.

In happier news, though, it turns out that I have in fact transcribed all my focus groups through the month of May. I thought there was one more, but there's no recording of it -- I had it listed wrong on my progress sheet taped to the wall.

i was so ... anxious

Dudes. I seriously cannot tell you how pleased I am with the past couple of days. Let's try, though, shall we?

( Yesterday )

Incredibly productive day huzzah. ( BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE. )

( The Virginia Official Safety Inspection Manual says: )

And now I will pack my bags and wrap my presents and possibly even do some laundry. And internally, I will DANCE AND SING because this is the best weekend EVER.

i was so ... happy

My office e-mail is not working this morning. It does not seem to be an office-wide problem, because I don't hear other people complaining and the tech people are not scurrying around trying to fix things; it just seems to be a me-specific problem. I put in a ticket flagged "urgent" explaining that my Office Communicator works fine so it's not that I'm not connected to the network, but my Outlook sits on "Trying to Connect" for five minutes at a time and then gives up -- and then I sat back in anticipation of a peaceful morning being allowed to work without the e-mail ringing every two minutes with people asking me for things they could have done themselves.

And then it occurred to me to see if I could connect to webmail.

Sigh. The webmail works fine. So I'm back in touch with my team, and I have good-girl points for macgyvering up a solution, but, meh.

In other news, the new box of tissues I opened yesterday is the kind with lotion in them, so yay, but on the other hand, they are stiffly enough stuck in the box that by the time I'm about to sneeze there's not enough time to get one out. Grr.

[eta: Half an hour after I put in my ticket, someone from IT came around to let me know there's a problem with e-mail and I should use webmail for now. Glad to know they're on the case. ;-) ]

1. Dear Paul McGann: re the Eighth Doctor (and Lt. Bush, but not Alien³ -- although if I can forgive Gabriel Byrne for ... well, for his whole resume, basically, I can forgive you for that), pls let me know when would be a convenient time for me to have your babies.

1a. Parenthetically, dear non-Paul-McGann cast member from "Storm Warning": Capetown? No, seriously, is that supposed to be a South African accent? I had briefly wondered if you might be going for something southern-hemisphere, but then settled on Russian, because of the whole socialist-minister thing and the fact that you just plain didn't sound like a native speaker (and yes, I know you're set in 1930; you didn't sound like a native speaker of any vintage). South African, though? Damn. It, ah, needs some work.

2. Pulled too close to a wheelstop last night and did some damage to the @#%^&! bumper again. The next time that happens will be the last, I'll tell you what. I am going to fucking buy a new car and it's going to have more than an INCH AND A HALF of clearance in the front, goddammit. BUT! this morning a charming man at the garage fixed it as well as it could be fixed, and he did it in five minutes and didn't charge me. So that's all right. (To really fix it would require replacing the goddamn bumper, because there's something cracked on one edge, but unless it fails the inspection, I'm not down with that.)

3. ( Those of you who know what I'm talking about will know what I mean with this, I think. )

i was so ... okay

THAT'S HOW BUSY I'VE BEEN TODAY.

Arghh. Just, yeah, that's all I've got right now.

[shovels against the tide]

There were more instructions in re Not Talking About The Specifics Of The Thing this time, so rather than get into detail, I will just say this:

Man, that sucked.

I'm going to take a nap now. I think that's what's called for. At the moment I'm persevering in my grouchiness in order not to become upset, but it can't last, so, right: couch.

i was so ... annoyed

How much do I not want to be at work today? (ELEVEN BILLION.) Added to which, I forgot my lunch. Phooey. I do have lunch-stuff here, so no big, but still. Rar.

i was so ... cranky

1. I ordered the Kairos. I'm also going to buy the Danskos this afternoon. Now I really can't buy two pair of Danskos, is what. Fortunately, if I'm not mistaken my credit card statement closes today, so poss. both purchases will show up next month. Wouldn't that be exciting! If they do show up this month, though, I can still take it. Yes.

2. The father of a childhood friend of mine (D) died yesterday. I heard this first from C, who's still in closer touch with D than I am (also, C and D share a very close mutual friend from college, which is where C herself got the news), and who said the father had been unwell recently (which I hadn't known), but this was completely unexpected. I passed the news on to a few other people from high school, one of whom (J) subsequently heard from his own father -- the two sets of parents being still very good friends -- that D's father had been opening his swimming pool; apparently slipped or fell or passed out or something as a result of low blood pressure from his medication?; and drowned. Which is, like, not at all what a person expects when the news is that someone hasn't been well and has then died suddenly. He was sixty years old.

3. Polygraph v2.0 in three weeks. Go me. Witness my enthusiasm. [and there was much rejoicing]

i was so ... exanimate

General overhaul of blue jeans situation: no, but I wasn't home all day.

Little Notebook For Writing Things Down In: no, because they don't sell Moleskine at Target.

Call the doctor-people: no.

Press the button on the coffee: yes.

Get to work at or before 9am: yes. (8:54.)

So the day wasn't a total wash. Boss is still sitting shiva, so while he may stop by tomorrow it will be your friendly neighborhood Fox stepping up to the plate at the Big Important Meeting to which I would otherwise not even have been invited. [bites nails] I'm off to try things on and pick out a non-suit-but-nevertheless-businesslike outfit.

In other news, we played well at curling tonight, which in combination with the fact that the other team played Less Well got us the win. Two games tomorrow, so that should be plenty of practice. But I have to be sure not to oversweep and bugger my shoulder. New comedy shot assessment: "Okay, that's not without value."

i was so ... sleepy

So, yeah. A week and a half until my poly. Strange how knowing it was coming (in the abstract) didn't make me nervous at all, because I really have nothing to hide; but knowing it's coming (in the concrete, and when) has got me chewing my lip a little anxiously. Eeeee, polygraph! [fret] Fortunately, it's at 12:30 in the afternoon, so I don't have to bust my ass to get to who-knows-where before I'd normally even be at work.

In other news, my knee has been bothering me since Saturday, and unsurprisingly last night at curling was worse than Sunday or Monday. But then having had four ibuprofen before the seventh end and four more before I went to bed, I woke up this morning and it didn't hurt, and you know how when you've had hiccups for a long time and then they go away it feels strange to be able to breathe normally? This is, like, it feels wrong to me that my right knee is not in pain. But then it seized up a bit in the car on the way to work, so now it aches a little and all is well. ;-)

Nuttiest game I've played in a long time, last night. For a start, skip RB was there, which is like not normal -- she came in the door, and I blinked and looked at my watch and she said "Yeah, the Senate's not in session", and we all went "aha." Anyway: the women's challenge team of RB, RS, self, and KS won the toss, and faced the team of SMcM, VC,

insptr_penguin, and SF. We took three in the first. They took three in the second. We took one in the third (an end in which at least fifteen, if not all sixteen, stones were in play -- and in the top of the house or out front -- by the finish, and which took forever). They took one in the fourth. We took three in the fifth. They took two in the sixth. We took two in the seventh. So we were three up coming home without the hammer, and we played a pretty stupid eighth end, with the result that S was drawing for four to win. And she came up short and wrecked on her own guard. I'm pretty sure I said "Oh, you've got to be kidding me!" before hollering at her sweepers to split the guard and the shooter on. AUGH. All eight of us were willing to call it a tie, but league rules say there has to be a decision, so we played a half-end, and we won. CRAZY.

And today we're off to the Kayser. Hurrah!

i was so ... chipper

I am not feeling feverish today at all, which, given that I overslept and there was a broken-down dump truck on 395 and when I got to work I realized I'd forgotten my lunch, is a good thing.

But I am not in a crappy mood! Because I don't feel sick, and I may get New Curling Togs today (a new broom will have to be ordered, but we'll see about that), and I met

wordplay's wee girl, who when encouraged by her mother to say hi danced right up and gave me a hug. Also, it is Friday, so I have a weekend coming up, which is good because I'm traveling for work next week and the flight out leaves Dulles at 0700 Monday morning no I am not kidding. That has me out of bed at, what, 3:30? I may not even go to sleep Sunday night.

i was so ... good

Profile

fox

May 2025

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
				1	2	3
4	5	6	7	8	9	10
11	12	13	14	15	16	17
18	19	20	21	22	23	24
25	26	27	28	29	30	31

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags

Entries tagged with work

monday morning round-up

urgh.

it is wednesday.

an odd day

back (phase 2)

ahahahahaha.

[makes a face]

i know there's a lot of jargon, but some of these are self-explanatory.

sometimes i get frustrated when it seems my job has little to do with my degrees.

grand-scheme-wise, this is a minor frustration.

this morning

memo

knuckleball in the dirt

a reproduction of the note i just left on my whiteboard:

tell me again why I agreed to this

OMG y'all i am winning this weekend.

curse your sudden yet inevitable work ethic!

in which the good is good, and the bad is just annoying

yeah. more notes when I need to avoid work?

polygraph v2.0

sigh.

the good, the very bad, and the merely frustrating

in summary:

OMGWTFPOLYGRAPH

for those of you who may be interested

Profile

May 2025

Tags

Expand Cut Tags