Buffalo Wings

The last two days I've had off, I got the same thing. My boss respects it (barring any emergencies), but others around here don't know or don't care that I'm off and keep calling. I mean...don't bother to listen to my voice mail greeting, consult the public calendar that I updated, or see my out of office response that clearly say I have the day off. The previous boss I had made my lazy co-worker call me because said lazy co-worker did no research on a problem. I ripped into him, but he told me not to blame him because the boss told him to call me. :huh: Complaint: Had a system-wide outage yesterday that took down our email from midnight to 5:30pm. All day long it looked like a server problem until one of the server admins found our firewall vendor released a "critical" update to the firewalls that caused the problem. Our firewall guy (luckily not me) was beside himself and my group took a ton of heat.

Whenever I say something about it, I always get told that putting headphones on and listening to something will drown out the noise or keep people away. Neither happens.

And on to this week's complaint... I may have mentioned in the past that my office is an open-cubicle environment, where any walls are about 3 feet high, so I can turn my head and look my neighbor in the eye. Thus, sounds carry very well throughout the room, occupied by about 30 people. Today, everyone is loud. We have loud talkers who, while talking on the phone, can be heard from China. Three of those people have been on the phone at various times this morning, not to mention standing right next to my desk and talking loudly to my neighbor...they're also pretty close to sitting in my lap while doing so. We also hear every single damn cell phone that's not in silent mode, and that constitutes about 90% of the phones in this room. I still (and always will) think it's unprofessional to leave the volume up on your phone in the office so everyone can hear your stupid-ass ring tone. :censored: :censored: :censored: :censored:

At my last job, they did this religiously - clean out the fridge on the last Friday of every month. And when I say "clean out", I'm not joking. Literally, EVERYTHING that was in the fridge got tossed, regardless of whether it was labeled, new, old, moldy, whatever...and whoever cleaned it actually did a serious Mr Clean job on it, so it smelled brand new. There were signs posted on the fridge during the week leading up to the clean-out, so everyone knew the deal. It was their problem if their leftovers got tossed. Last week, I was told that we (the non-management peons) are responsible for the condition/cleanliness of the fridge. This came from our Facilities Department, who oversees the physical grounds of the building. So, this tells me that nobody will take any action to clean it out and it will continue to be a mess for years to come.

Complaint of the day #2... I just opened the fridge door in our office kitchen and was greeted by a glass bottle of salad dressing falling out of the door, breaking into about 8 pieces, and spilling the dressing all over the floor and my shoe. Took me a few minutes to clean it up, but now my shoe smells like some creamy yogurt/dill flavor and it's turning my stomach. This fridge is jam-packed full every single day. People leave their food, soda, salad dressing, etc. in there for months on end. I've seen the same 8-oz container of yogurt in there for at least 6 months. Why on Earth do people do this?

I've been lucky to avoid the latest round of sickness circulating through our office, but given that we're an open-cubicle style work area with at least 20 people in here, I'm bound to catch something again. We've had this configuration for a little over a year now and I've gotten sick twice. I blame my upper management for thinking this was a good idea. Today's complaint...everything that you can do nothing about. The continued mouthing off of our President, people telling you how sick they are, idiots on the road, reports that you can't eat this, reports that you actually can (and should) eat the same thing, etc. I almost want to tell everyone off and win Powerball. My wife keeps telling me how we should buy a private Caribbean island - I'm starting to warm up to the idea.

A few weeks ago, I was driving through a busy intersection when some nut job was trying to merge into my lane right as I was there (I had the right of way, he had a yield sign - I know this intersection VERY WELL). He wasn't even looking - just kept moving as if he assumed he had the right of way or that it was safe to merge. I honked & swerved to miss him and almost hit the guy in the lane next to me. Part of me wanted the minor accident so I could yell at him. The smart part of me decided that would be a bad idea. I rented a car to drive to the Boston area for work a few months back - no EZ pass, so the transponders on the Mass Pike just snapped a picture of the plate and billed Enterprise, who billed me. They added some crazy fee that cost me (well, my company) an extra $9. I'm glad that wasn't my personal car.

It hasn't been just the past few days...it's more like the past few years. More & more drivers lately have clearly gotten their license from a Cracker Jack box. It's maddening how many don't know the rules or are just a-holes with their car.

Though I wouldn't go as far to say that, it still annoys the H out of me when I have to pass a bicyclist on any 2-lane road. I had to pass one yesterday who was completely inside the white line on a 45mph road (where everyone goes 60), so I was slowing down to about 20 so that I didn't jut too far into the other lane. I felt bad for the cars behind me, but what am I gonna do?

That really does suck. The wife & I found out several years ago that we couldn't have kids and it literally brought me into a funk. I got over it, of course, but it's always going to be a disappointment. At least they have one child and can embrace that. My complaint: I know I say a lot about the people I work with, but today was a reminder of how difficult it is working with a specific director. This person always interrupts you, asks your opinion on something and then doesn't believe it, and tells you how things should be designed and is wrong more often than not. The moment you disagree with something, they take it personally and turn it into a personal vendetta against you. :censored:

I've had it a few times in my career where co-workers would do the exact same thing to me. I think they figured I didn't have as much experience in my field simply because I was new to the company. I'd give them a pass for the first couple of times, but when I tell them "yes, I've had plenty of experience with that in the past", you'd think they'd get it. A current co-worker who has been at my company for over 20 years (I've been here for about 6) continues to be condescending when they explain specific things. This person also doesn't trust anyone and always wants us to pay for an outside consultant to come in and give their opinion. They still haven't caught on - the consultants usually give the same answer I do. Waste of time & money.

This is one of those weeks that Murphy must have been thinking of when he wrote his law. I did have the holiday off and got to hit the links for 18, but there was even controversy in doing that. You try to set things up in a game to make it fair for everyone and people still complain. It's a game, for chrissake. When I actually am working this week, it seems like everything we try to do to make our systems better for the users is 1,000 times harder than it should be. It's just one of those times where there isn't one specific thing that irks you, but a confluence of multiple little annoying things that you can't get resolved...and they're all out of your control.

For every wedding I've been to as an adult (except for one), I've had my girlfriend-fiancee-wife with me. The one exception was my good buddy's wedding, but it was small and there wasn't a lot of "clientele" there. At least for my brother-in-law's wedding, I met my wife's ex-boyfriend from high school. I clearly won that battle. :flirt:

I've had to get up at 3am to start work at 4am. I think that's worse.

Today is my mother's 75th birthday. My brother and younger sister (along with their spouses) came in from out of town for this. My older sister (she & I live in the same general area as my mother) is organizing the party and she decided to tell everyone to be at her house at 3:30 today. I work until 4 and it would take me at least an hour to get there after work. Not the end of the world, but I would like to hang out with my non-local family members for longer than a few hours.

Again, the theory is that once the whistle blows, players stop playing, so everything is then rendered moot. I still say that this could have been overturned because it was such a bang-bang play...the whistle didn't impact the play at all. Apples & oranges. If a bad call went against the Titans in a playoff game, then you can make this argument. This is technically a different fan base.

And a bad call in Game 1 to take away their first goal. I just can't congratulate Pittsburgh for winning when these two calls changed the complexion of the series. It's like giving credit to Tom Brady & Bill Belichick for just being great when you know the cheating cloud is hanging overhead. Call me bitter if you want, but I just can't help but think what would have happened if the Preds didn't get hosed.

I hate it when I'm right. I also hate it when people quote themselves on message boards. I thought Pekka deserved the Conn Smythe 10 times more than Crosby did.

With that play, it seemed like it didn't matter. I think I heard the whistle as Sissons tapped the puck into the net. That was a classic bang-bang play.

In theory, once the whistle blows, the players stop playing, so all bets are off. That said, what could the referees have been discussing? As bad as that was, the whistle clearly blew before the puck crossed the line. I hate how Pittsburgh got away with one there, but I can't blame the ref too much.

This better not be a 1-goal game in Pittsburgh's favor

It was based on some suspected problem - I had severe abdominal pains (intermittent, not constant) about two months ago, which led the doctors to believe I had appendicitis. A CT scan revealed it was inflammation of my colon. After IV antibiotics and a 2-day hospital stay, I was all better, but the GI doc wanted me to get a colonoscopy just to be sure. Everything showed up normal, so it was likely some infection. On the bright side, the GI doctor was quite the looker. :wub: I was going to complain about all the rain around here, but then I looked at the 10-day forecast.

I'm thinking the home crowd has a lot to do with it. That environment is kick-a$$. It's almost like Lynah Rink in Ithaca in February. I oughta brush up on my Tim McGraw before Sunday.

Nashville better stop giving Pittsburgh these opportunities

Good point about the back & knee issues...but I'd still say that's on him. His swing was very controlled, yet extremely fast. The amount of torque he put on his body for all those years likely caught up with him and were a huge factor in those injuries, IMO. I don't doubt he's on enough medication to make a pharmacy jealous, but I wonder why he was out driving at 3am. Perhaps sleepwalking? The excuse just seems fishy to me.