If You Can't Trust Your Co-Workers...

Here's some math you've probably never thought about before. Maybe you have and I'm just not giving you enough credit, but for those of you that haven't, consider this. In a seven day period, there are a total of 168 hours. Of those 168 hours, you could spend an average of 56 of them sleeping (if you go with the 8 hours a day - I know that doesn't apply to all of you - I promise there are fingers pointing back at me, too). That leaves you 112 hours.

Your average 40 hour work week will include five 9-hour days (gotta include that lunch hour) along with another hour allowance (at a minimum) for the drive to and from work, if it only takes 30 minutes to get there. Hence, you will spend around 40-50 hours with the people you work with. That leaves you 52 hours to yourself...well, sort of.

You've got to prepare for work in the mornings which will take anywhere from 30-90 minutes depending on how much prep you need. If you go to church, that will eat up anywhere from 2-4 hours, not including prep and drive times. Then there's food preparation, depending on how much you cook at home. The point to all this is that you likely spend just as much time around your co-workers as you do your family at home.

On my desk at work, I've tended to keep some kind of receptacle that holds water (or something equally to less drinkable). I don't secure it or much of anything else, but just assume that my co-workers will just leave it alone. Apparently, this is not an entirely safe thing to do in some environments.

I don't remember the exact circumstances surrounding this conversation, but somehow, I ended up in a very short conversation with someone (probably one of those people who can't handle more than 10 seconds without a work spoken, and also probably in an elevator) and mentioned that I always had a water bottle or something on my desk. He said that I must really trust my co-workers.

This was a guy with that sort of look on his face of absolute conceit, as if he were the best thing that ever happened to any room he entered, and the world grew a little darker when he left. He looked like a prankster. Now, I considered his words over trust, and the only thing that came to my mind was that if you can't trust your co-workers, who can you trust? No, you're not bound to them, but at the same time, you're really stuck with these people every day of your life until you or they move on to something else. Change can always happens, but until it does, you'll be seeing them tomorrow.

There are always those that think it's hilarious to mess with people, and while this can certainly mix things up to keep life interesting, there is always a line in my opinion. You should never interfere with someone's ability to do their job. I knew someone who had a habit of doing "something" to people's computers when they left them unlocked. One that I know of was when he changed someone's screen resolution to 640x480 which completely screwed up the layout of the icons on their desktop, but the worst was when someone unplugged someone else's phone. Our phones are on some complicated network system that I don't fully comprehend, and unplugging the phone caused it to basically reset. They had to call IT and everything to get the line reestablished. This was followed, of course, by a mass email telling everyone not to do that.

I believe you should trust and get along with your co-workers. After all, they're pretty much your second family, and you probably see them more than your main one.

The Van Story

So at the beginning of the year last year, I was driving around town in an old 1988 Lincoln Town Car. It had some issues, not the least of which involved some kind of electrical that constant drained the battery and a power steering fluid leak that was just hopeless. So we decided to unload it ... um, trade it in on something else. I wanted to keep my status as "car payment free," so I put back $2000 to spend on a used vehicle.

It's hard to find a used vehicle for $2000. I figured whatever I got for this might have an issue or two, but I just needed it to run and not require a jump every morning. After some touring around, we ended up a local dealership where we were shown to a minivan that they were charging $4000 for. This was above my price range, but at the same time, we had been looking for a bit, and found that $2000 was definitely not going to get me anything worth driving.

They asked if my old car ran, and I said it did (failing to mention anything about it starting consistently since they didn't ask). In fact, for its final drive to the lot, we had to jump it. They said they'd give $500 for the old car unseen since it ran, making the van $3500 plus the fees and nonsense gave us a total of $3800. I handed over my $2K leaving us with a balance of $1800.

Well, they said that the amount was so low that it wasn't worth the trouble to finance it, so we settled on a gentlemen's agreement of $300 for 6 months. They took my credit card number, and they would just run the card on a certain day for the $300, and we call it good. That's a lot of math, and I do not apologize for it.

Anyway, it all went rather smoothly, and I thought I was good to go. For a couple weeks.

Then, it started having some transmission problems. I'm terrible with cars and stuff, and so when I went perusing for one, I had no idea what to look for or what the warning signs are for "run away as fast as possible." Rather, I'm the sucker born every minute who gets sucked in by the salesman to buy now. I took the van to a transmission person who took one look at the dipstick and declared that I was screwed and needed a new transmission. He described it in more detail than that, but that was the gist of it.

Boom. $1500.

Now, an interesting detail on this whole thing is that somewhere along the way, the car lot failed to put my credit card in their auto pay whatchamacallit, and relied, instead, on someone manually running the card through. That person disappeared, so after they missed two payments that I had budgeted, I called them up and asked about it. They said whoops, and ran the two payments.

Now, having just dropped $1500 for a transmission on a vehicle that I now only owed $1200 on, I decided that since they were supposed to run the payments automatically, I would simply ignore it going forward if they forgot subsequent payments. As a matter of, shall we say, cosmic coincidence, the final payment was scheduled for the expiration month of my credit card, so if they failed to take anything in a timely manner, the card would no longer work.

They never took another payment, so I chalk that up to them basically paying for the transmission. What I owe lingers in the back of my mind, and I'm not sure what will happen when the time comes to trade this van off, which I want to do fairly soon, since it has some other problems.

One of the earlier things I tried when the transmission started acting up was replacing the spark plugs. (it made sense based on the symptoms). Well, I jacked up one of the spark plug holes forcing me to have to rethread it and then put in a rethreading spring deal down there. It's all holding together, but I do not want to have to replace that spark plug. The A/C technically works, but it won't hold any freon due to a leak somewhere that will drain it in only a few days. The left blinker has a short to where the rear light won't flash. And there is something up with the ignition system. I have to turn the key to on, wait about 30 seconds, and then turn it over. If I try to jump the gun, it won't start, and I have to wait longer. I don't really get that.

Oh, and the radio sucks. It is radio only. No cassette, CD, or external audio jack. Basically, I'm stuck with airwaves.

So, I'm ready to get rid of this thing,but before I can do that, I'll need some scratch under me both to be able to afford another car payment as well as accounting for the possibility of that unpaid $1200. The moral of the story here is to make sure when you buy a used car to look under the hood and check everything. If your instincts tell you something is wrong, then walk away.

Casual Driving

Not sure how well I've conveyed this through these posts, but on the whole, I am a very laid back individual. I have my moments of intensity, sure, but when it comes down to basic, everyday personality, I take it easy. This translates into my driving style as well.

A lot of people, once they get behind the wheel of a car, change into someone altogether different. The happy granny becomes a road raging maniac when caught behind someone going 5 under the speed limit and that sort of thing. From a general perspective, those things don't bother me. I'd rather people actually cruise along at a reasonable speed, but I also take it fairly easy myself on the road.

My angle when I'm driving is that wherever I'm going, I won't get there much quicker by gunning my engine and zipping around everyone else. In addition, driving in that manner increases your stress level quite a bit since driving takes a lot more out of you, energy-wise, than people give it credit for. When speeding down the expressway, you're constantly looking over your shoulder for the cop to bust you for speeding and trying to get around someone who might or might not try merging in front of you.

I'm the opposite. I tend to set the cruise control for the speed limit and lay back and watch the scenery go by. I look at every other driver on the road as someone who wants to destroy me for absolutely no reason, and as such, I give everyone a pretty wide girth. I assume everyone on every side street wants to pull out in front of me, and I never just gun it off at a light lest someone should run the fresh red the other direction (which has happened more than once). I also figure that since people love to turn right on red, they'll probably do so right in front of me.

It seems a touch paranoid, perhaps, but the last speeding ticket I got was in car without a speedometer right after I exited a highway after driving for two hours straight, and I've been in one accident that was considered my fault ... in 1993 ... on ice. I've actually detailed my accidents here recently, so no need to go into them again.

In addition, driving is not stressful for me. I just chill when I'm behind the wheel, and life is good. If I'm stuck in traffic, then oh well. I'm not going to get there any quicker by worrying about it. If I'm in construction, I generally don't like it because of the inherent danger in driving in those conditions (so I like to avoid it entirely), but I also am not concerned about the time it takes. I try not to leave too late for something so I can just relax on a drive.

It doesn't always happen, of course, but I'm also describing my ideal situation here. That's just me, though. Mr. Cruise Control. If you're behind me, then just go around. I'm probably not going to go any faster, cause I'm in no hurry. It's relaxing.

Apparently, I'm Threatening

So this is something I never really think about because it strikes me as a little preposterous. However, I know how I can be sometimes, and I can kind of see it...kind of. What made me think of my coming off as a threatening presence was when I had to deal with something at Sassy Pants' school, and it was something I wasn't altogether happy about.

I don't want to detail the issue, but it involved my going into the same person a few times trying for their approval over something. I went in a total of four times over the course of a day, while being turned down each time. The final time I went in, the person apparently saw me coming and brought in the principal to sit in. I was turned down once more, and the principal said we were done for the day.

I told the Queen about the whole thing, and especially the end where the principal was called in, and she did note that I have a sort of intensity about me sometimes that some people might find threatening if they don't know me. This is especially intense when I am somewhat angry, but note that my being angry does not translate into shouting or name calling or even grumbled insults. In fact, I remain completely cordial, though I have had occasion to debate the issue (some say argue, but it's more that I state my case and try to debunk their side of it where an argument might come off as a gainsay disagreement as opposed to a civil conversation. i.e. "Yes, it is." "No, it isn't.").

In addition, I'm not exactly a big guy. Genetically, I have very, very broad shoulders (8 inch collarbones), and while I'm not "muscular", I have some decent muscle mass, and I'm not fat. I'm also only 5'9", so picture a average heighted guy with that sort of trapezoidal male figure where it tapers slightly down from shoulder to waist and that's me. I do have a bit of a smart mouth, and I do have a sort of unfortunate tendency to make one feel stupid without half trying (ok, I admit to doing it on purpose sometimes...very subtly. I have talked people into removing their phone batteries while they're talking on them just to see if they would. Some totally did.).

So, I suppose when it comes to being threatening, it is possible that I can come off that way, but I don't intend to. I also did not hear from that person again when we sent just Sassy Pants in to see her one more time the following day (had to work, you know). Perhaps she didn't want to deal with me again. I consider that a victory.

People Are Thick

Sometimes, people get caught up in their own little world, and reply to business emails with their strong words to impress everyone else on the massive email string without realizing that they sound like a complete idiot because they never bothered to read any of the replies to their previous inquiries. They use acronyms like crazy, especially ETA, which in most cases, also makes them sound like an idiot since they clearly have no idea what it actually stands for (Estimated Time of Arrival, just in case you're one of them, but don't want to admit it).

One individual in particular replied to an email string stating that the formatting was incorrect in a couple of fields due to the existence of decimals and commas. That is all he said about it. I didn't know which fields were affected or what sort of output he needed beyond removing those characters. Add to this that the other people were actively running the files anyway, which would mean that once they get them all done, none of them will work since they're formatted incorrectly. To date, no one has so much as noticed this little plot hole.

Anyway, on Mr. Decimal-Comma, I replied to his email string (it was a double reply since I had to address both his issue and the other one where someone was having trouble running one of the files, see plot hole) asking which fields were affected and what sort of output he wanted. Later that day, he replied again asking if the formatting was complete and for an "eta on when that will be complete". Besides the egregious misuse of the acronym, I had to wonder if he even read what I wrote before since that was literally the next reply. You may note that it does not contain the answer to my question of "which fields are affected."

I cut and pasted my previous question noting that the eta is dependent on his answer to my question. (Note the proper usage of the acronym; if you broke that out and read it in full, the statement would still make sense). I just have to wonder how some of these end up in positions of power when they clearly don't read the communication they receive.

Voicemails Are A Waste Of Time

Not all the time, mind you. Sometimes, the best thing to leave is a voicemail for one reason or another, but I'm talking about people who leave voicemails for the sake of leaving a voicemail.

For instance, I was called today by someone who needed me to fix something for them. He talked to someone in our Tier 1 group who IM'd me to say he was calling. I acknowledged said call and said I'll call him back. I knew his name, why he was calling, the ticket he was referencing, and I had his number. If you add that up, you'll find every piece of info anyone could possibly leave in a voicemail other than a convenient time to call back. He insisted on leaving a voicemail, which cost him a minute or so, and cost me a minute or so to retrieve it (as well as the time it took to write this angry blog about it).

His voicemail consisted of no new information.No times. No alternate callback numbers. No other people to contact in case he was out. Nothing. That list I gave above? That's what he left.

I have had people leave me a voicemail only to say they sent me an email. I had already read the email, and didn't need the voicemail. I am not sure that people are aware that it take time to check voicemail. It actually takes longer to check a voicemail than pretty much every other form of message-leaving communication. Text is quick. You can check that in the info bar if you catch it coming in. Emails are quick. Voicemail is slow.

I'm tired of pointless voicemails. Can you tell?