Summer Fun

Today was the annual UHC spring barbecue. Only replace “spring” with “summer,” because it was that friggin’ hot out today. Food was good, and company was fun. I managed to drag Eric out of the Eric-Cave by mentioning the free food (“UHC picnic” actually piqued his interest the most, but it’s more entertaining to say it was the food), so he got some sunlight today. [Eric can feel free to contest my libel by starting up his own blog, where he could note humorous anecdotes—e.g. discovering that the anti-bacterial wipes we found at WinCo contain the active ingredient of the spermicide of Trojan condoms—in addition to countering my blatant lies.]

Highlights included watching Andy take multiple rounds in the face (courtesy of Ruth and Misty), and entrusting Eric with my camera (with the express mission of taking humorous pictures) only to watch him stand and chat with Jane instead. He would later comment that there were many attractive females, in not quite as civilised a tongue, at the BBQ. Once I retrieved the camera, I actually took some nice pictures this time. They were much improved over my photos from a year ago, despite my not having that much more experience. Yes, folks, there’s Real Content here today!

Things pretty much went as they go every year at this function, until Joel brought out a box of squirt guns. By that time the heat had gotten to the heads of a select portion of the UHC community, and All Hell Broke Loose. I also figured out that I should use the “action” preset on my camera, so the ensuing flurry of shots are still more in-focus than my attempts at pictures last year, despite the Intense Action.

Tangentially related: is your dean this cool? I didn’t think so. Keep in mind that this is the same day that the GT printed an article about how he won the Clark Tibbitts award (self-described as “the pinnacle of [his] career”).

Yesterday, in contrast, sucked. I got called in to chat with my bosses at work, and was told that—effectively—I hadn’t been keeping scanning up-to-date enough. The solution (no warning given to me, incidentally, that there was any issue)? Hire a permanent position to do my job in a more timely fashion. Some lucky schmuck is going to get the easiest job in the world…and (I bet) he or she will mess it up. Scanning, when you want to be absolutely certain that everything got in correctly, takes more concentration than most people would suspect.

Rather than finish me off, though, my bosses have elected to keep me on as some weird proto-assistant to them. It really sounds like a half-assed plan where I’ll be frequently left in the lurch. The reason behind all of this, I believe? There was some organizational meeting earlier in the day, and people complained that scanning was behind (never mind that there are a couple of people in the office who’ll complain about anything). Truthfully, I had been behind—though I was pretty darn close to caught up, as of yesterday—but a good degree of that was the result of a gigantic cram session preceding the cutoff date for the latest bonus. On the other side, my office manager has some tasks that take too much time (and involve delving deep into the new crappy software we’re using), and my boss has some odds and ends that I can do for less than the person currently doing them can…combine the two, and you get a “kill two birds with one stone” scenario.

My pride wants me to walk away. Practically, though, making money is better than not making money—and I’m not likely to use my time for anything beneficial if I were to quit. For now, I guess, my attitude will be “I can always quit tomorrow.” I’m not sure how that’ll affect my performance, though…I’m already pretty damn bitter about work as it is.

It’s for reasons like these that I’m thankful for evenings like this one.

 

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