HR

OK. So I was offered the new position on a different program for a different client. Wednesday.

HR calls me Thursday, 4:25pm, rightza before I leave the office, to sign the new offer-sheet. Ain't no deal. But when I stop at HR on my way out, all the numbers are wrong. Not what I had discussed with the Program Director. Especially the base pay numbers.

... and especially since I am well beyond season four. So I have a conference with the Program Manager.... then the Business Director.... and then back to HR, who adamantly will not change the SPR-11 form, which is basically the offer sheet, until the Bizzynuts Director rescinds the original offer (which they missed typed) by emailing an EF form, signed. So I pick up the phone on the HR Dimwitty's Desk, very not appreciated by Ms. Dimwitty, and call the BD direct, who instructs me to just tear up the SPR-11, which I do, which really sends Ms. Dimwitty into a dim-tizzy. Which breaks me up, but I really am a nice guy, so I don't laugh and just tell her to pull up a copy of the old one and change the numbers so we can all move beyond this bullshit.

Reminds me of a Neil Young song...

Every time I think aboutback home

It's cool and breezy

I wish that I could be thereright now

Just passing time.

Everybody seems to wonder

What it's like down here

I gotta get awayfrom this day-to-dayrunning around,

Everybody knows

this is nowhere.

Which isn't the song that sticks in my head long...

....cause I'm still in the office.... have virtually nothing to do but pack up my shit and get ready to move to the fourth floor on tuesday. And I got a phone call last night...... from someone I was very connected with a long time ago. And with whom I would reconnect with every so often.... and whom I haven't heard from in awhile... and I get this Joan Baez song buzzing in my ear, in my heart...

Well, I'll be damned

Here comes your ghost again

But that's not unusual

It's just that the moon is full

And you happened to call

And here I sit Hand on the telephone

Hearing a voice I'd known

A couple of light years ago

Heading straight for a fall

.... She invariably asks how my kids are and gives me the latest rundown on her husband. Just trading pages. Asked if I remember the cottage we went to in Eagle River ten years ago or the time in college when she got up in the middle of the night and stepped on my glasses that had fallen on the floor and was so afraid to tell me.

As I remember your eyes

Were bluer than robin's eggs

My poetry was lousy you said

Where are you calling from?

A booth in the Midwest

Ten years ago I bought you some cufflinks

You brought me something

We both know what memories can bring

They bring diamonds and rust

oh.... there had been trips to the zoo in Milwaukee, plays, concerts. Things had been good. But never seemed to be good enough. There was something about my distinct sense of disorder that bothered her. and her sense of neat, tidy, clean, ordered.... were always more that I could handle. But I did love her dearly. So we talked. A long time. Without a mention of a next call or a cup of coffee...... just a talk.

Now I see you standing with brown leaves falling around

And snow in your hair

Now you're smiling out the window of that crummy hotel

Over Washington Square

Our breath comes out white clouds

Mingles and hangs in the air

Speaking strictly for me

We both could have died then and there

Now you're telling me you're not nostalgic

Then give me another word for it

You who are so good with words

And at keeping things vague

'Cause I need some of that vagueness now

It's all come back too clearly

Yes, I loved you dearly

And if you're offering me diamonds and rust

I've already paid

Maybe it all failed, so long ago, because I didn't fill out the proper SPR-11 form.

just another sunrise

... had two interviews yesterday for other positions in the company. The whole process sucks.

But Spartz and Dusty liked the last sunrise and I thought I would post another.

I live close to a rather large lake; tip to tip it is about 35-40 miles long and about 11 miles at the widest. It dawned on me, last summer, that it had been years since I had been on the shore at sunrise. Other that those mornings, years ago, when I had been out all night and was in not shape to realize how beautiful it can be. Guess I am more of a sunset kinda dude. So I went down there more often sunday mornings last summer. It is only a ten-fifteen minute walk and there is an 24/7 convenience store along the way to grab a coffee or juice, try to play with Miriam's camera and see if I can grab a decent photo or two. I may be getting the hang of it.

OK. Back to waiting for the HR dept. to call. Or the next sunrise.

Whewwwww!

Two interviews today for new programs. Looks good. It better be or it is filing unemployment 2/2/09! So I spent a hunk of the day cleaning email files..... Boy, did I ever save a buncha junk or what!!!! I thought this one was kinda fun......

Political Correctness
The following is the 2007 winning entry from an annual contest at Texas A&M University calling for the most appropriate definition of a contemporary term.

This year's term was Political Correctness.
The winner wrote:"Political Correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end."


So .... I should know by early Friday am, by the latest, if I still have a job in the company or if I need to start looking for the clean end of the turd.

Sunrise

The real trick, sometimes, is to evade the periperal view of the shore you are on and concentrate on the shore you cannot see.

'True North'
Jim Harrison

AAAARGH!

Wowsers&shit! What a fun day in the neighborhood!

I have an interview with new client program on Wednesday. Hopefully it will turn out ok.

With out overly explaining.... I work for a huge mother of a company...... last year's revenue was about $3BB. In the past, when a client left I was rather immediately placed within a new program. In this economy....... I am suddenly needing to compete with 50 other associates for ten open spots. It is all just a little stressfull. But the up side, if I grab onto the new program, I could be looking at an extra $14K in bonus structure.... or more.

The down side..... I may have to revert to my past occupation as a Lake Winnebago pirate.... stealing picnic baskets and beer coolers from unsuspecting pleasure boaters.

oooooh, rape! Plunder! Booty! Picnic baskets! Perhaps there ain't NO downside, Matey!!!!

HMMMMMMMMM!!!!!!!!

oooooops & shit

ok. Had me a little meeting with the business manager. The project I have worked on&off&on for the last 7 years has pulled the plug. Jan 31. With out going into a lotta details, I worked small marketing programs, with very specific goals, for Fortune 100 and 500 companies. I would usually work as a senior on multiple programs, multiple clients.

Well, boy&howdy, there are no new programs and I have until the end of the month to get hired on by one of the existing programs or it is unemployment for the beer meister.

Motherfukka Bush!!!

I just might not be posting as much. Or, after the end o the month, more often.

ob la dee, ob la dah.

Boy, itza good thing I still have some left over beans!!!!

Beans, Movies and a bit of tea

Ok. All this holiday stuff is over. Whew! I gracefully returned my presents and picked out what I really wanted. Max gets me a coffee maker every year even though the one he gave me two years ago is perfectly fine. And he does know that at home I usually drink tea, not coffee. I think he does it to piss me off. So I took it back and picked up a copy of........

... a great flick from a couple of years ago that is still fantastic. Really a whole bunch better than having a second coffee maker. For a dude like me, a second coffee maker is akin to having a third testicle when the first two don't get used a whole lot. Anyways..............

The New Years Eve thingee doesn't do much for me. It is safer and more fun to stay home and get together with friends a different time. So I spent New Year's Eve day whipping up a batch of pork&beans.

Nope. Not the stupid canned stuff. I get out the slow cooker, soak up some butter beans, white beans, pintos & round up some smoked ham hocks, bacon, molasses, garlic, onions, brown sugar..... then add all my super-double secret herbs and spices and do my stuff!! But you need a beer, or two or three, before you smoke the herb and add the spices and I was very fortunate to have a friend drop off some bottles of a nice Christmas Ale from the Belgians at the Huyghe Brewery.

... an extremely nice blond ale about 10% alcohol. So I have beer, beans, books and movies.....and one of my all time favorites....

"Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand."
Boy, that movie had it all! Newman and a supporting cast that beats all supporting casts! And some of the best lines ever!

"Nah - calling it your job don't make it right, Boss."

I think that knowing there will never be another Paul Newman flick was one of the sadder moments of 2008.

Cool Hand Luke also gave me a touch-stone line that I think about everytime I think of my divorce.....

"What we've got here is... failure to communicate."

...... and a little song that I used to hum alot in high school...

I don't care if it rains of freezes
'Long as I got my Plastic Jesus
Riding on the dashboard of my car.
Through my trials and tribulations
And my travels through the nations
With my Plastic Jesus I'll go far.
You can buy a Sweet Madonna
Dressed in rhinestones sitting on a
Pedestal of abalone shell
Goin' ninety, I'm not wary
'Cause I've got my Virgin Mary
Guaranteeing I won't go to Hell

No, I don't care if it rains or freezes
Long as I have my plastic Jesus
Riding on the dashboard of my car
But I think he'll have to go
His magnet ruins my radio
And if we have a wreck he'll leave a scar

Happy Newsy Year!