ironymaiden | Entries tagged with work

yesterday was the last Monday standup of my old org. in the before times most of three floors of my office would pile into a big open area and turn on the camera and mike for the (much smaller) team in New York and we would all see each other and exchange info for 15 minutes. it was always informative but with a lighthearted spirit. one of the added features when we went remote was a QA lead (who owns hundreds of masks) who would show up as a different superhero/alien/monster every week. with the merger and the increased size of the org it was determined by The New Management that rather than expand and adapt the meeting to include everyone from the other company the meeting would come to an end.

i already miss it.

a colleague who has long taken the role of MC for demos, trivia events, etc* played us out:

You’re the life of the party
But the party is finally over
I think I’m gonna lose my shit**
I’m gonna lose my composure

(the song is otherwise about other things; definitely one i would have played on my college radio show if it had existed at the time.)

Watch on YouTube

i have other things i meant to write about, but apparently this is what i'm chewing on.

* i think the only event he's run since the merger was the intern demos. this is a sadness
** we were pretty foul-mouthed, which was supported by our dearly departed EVP; i think saying fuck at work isn't really going to be a thing anymore

Current Mood: I think I want to pick a fight
Current Music: which one is your girlfriend

we finally made an order with Saint Javelin for some fun swag that supports humanitarian aid in Ukraine. (for US peeps, the prices are in CAD.) i grew up on a farm* so one of the things i got was a sticker inspired by this and other Ukranian farmers towing away military equipment with tractors.

an incompetent person at work is getting fired for being incompetent. i might have felt bad about it a couple weeks ago because they were a nice person who seemed eager. but at this point i can't wait for them to be gone so i can stop worrying about what they will break next. maybe i'll find time to write a locked post when the dust settles.

holy shit the Obi-Wan Kenobi teaser trailer dropped. i have read novels upon novels worth of Kenobi fanfic during the pandemic and am heavily emotionally invested in the character... so I am both thrilled and terrified by this thing. it reminds me of waiting for Wonder Woman. i'm worried that it's going to retcon his final scene in Star Wars in some awkward way, among other dumb things Disney is capable of. (and i know there's stuff that just isn't happening here; he's not going to have a cry about Satine and if we ever do find out what happened to Korkie it will be elsewhere.)

one of the side-effects of the war in Ukraine is that C and i are having rich conversations about geopolitics and the Cold War. a) the conversations are just good b) this is totally how we ended up dating originally, talking for hours about this kind of shit. so while everything is awful, this is also nostalgic and by association kind of sexy?

i am kind of in love with what sounds like a Goth cover album that i would have worked into my college radio show every week but is actually the Chipmunks on 16 speed.

*insert rant here about John Deere's current practices and also, hey it's Ukranian hackers that help farmers around the world do their own tractor maintenance

the access saga from a locked post resolved late this afternoon. at first the person who got it fixed sent me an email notification to tell me. you know, the email I couldn't access. (work slack has an emoji that fully expresses getting a dump of three days of unread emails and calendar invites, :joy_cry_blood:)

I did a chat bot workshop for two of the three fucking business days I had no email. All the workshop environment invites were in email. then they tried to contact me in sibling company's slack instance... which I did eventually get into.

Anyhow, the class was really great when i wasn't nearly in tears trying to get a login while the instructor went ahead mile-a-minute. the pace was just fine as long as I had access at the beginning of the segment. (the workshop was sponsored out of an office on the east coast so I've also bolted my lunch in 15 minutes for two days in a row.) really looking forward to putting it to use, but this has been a long long week.

all day planning meeting tomorrow *sigh*

i went to the office this week - Monday, Tuesday, and today. going in is completely optional, and very few people are taking advantage of it. i decided to see what it was like.

it was super clean and dust-free. it looked for all the world like i had left on Friday and not 18 months ago. the real signs that time had passed were that the two cafes in the lobby are gone without a trace remaining, and there are something like three new buildings outside. (my office is in the same neighborhood as Amazon and the growth rate is phenomenal. i was sad to note that you can no longer see the local dog park from our lounge.)

pros:

the bus is not full and traffic is light
i have at least my half of the floor to myself. no distractions!
coffee and reduced but larger-than-expected assortment of snacks and soft drinks
the fancy laptop dock
phat internet pipes
immaculately clean everything
no noise outside or C breaking my flow for dumb shit

cons:

masks required if you are not alone in a room (which is all the time since i don't have an office)
i have at least half the floor to myself. no friends.
motion-activated lights time out and turn off if i don't leave my desk
i still have a hard time passing up the basket of full-sized candy bars
only one door to the lobby is unlocked and it makes my walk like 30ft longer

i was productive, and the commute really is a difference maker: on the way in slowly starting to think about work stuff on the bus ride, walking up the hill and waking up my body; on the way out shedding work thoughts as i walk down the hill, reading and chatting with C about dinner on the ride home. when i walk through the door i'm fully home and decompressed. for two nights i left my work computer at work! (apparently just knowing that it's in reach weighs on me.)

part of being at the office is people and there aren't people since we're not able to spend time together yet. that's hard. but wow do i need to get out of the damn house, it's definitely improved my mood.

I had to work today in order to do a thing when it would impact the fewest people. It went pretty well.

via GIPHY

SIFF is over. i need to catch up here on the movies i've seen.

work thing is gonna eat my life until sometime next week, including a support window for folks in Europe where i'll start working at 11pm my time.

first vaccine shot is done as of yesterday, feeling fine so far. #housepfizer

team: build this thing!

me: this thing will not work the way you wish it would. this is why, this is what I would change to get what you desire.

team: the thing! the thing!

me: okay, I will build it to your specifications with some stale production data in staging so that you can see it.

team: oh! you did exactly what we asked for, and it's terrible.

me: yes, it is.

Current Mood: bitchy
Current Location: at least they were gracious in the end
Current Music: they were all men, you knew they were

i have to deliver a presentation themed on "a day in the life" tomorrow. (or maybe Friday, there's a whole thing where they never did send out the schedule.) it's not done, because thinking about my current routine makes me either angry or sad and i don't actually have the spoons for those feelings nor do i want to put a lot of energy into bitching. (i don't feel like it benefits me OR you, dear reader.)

or maybe i'm just horrified about having a five hour video meeting two days in a row.

the slides i do have done feature cartoons from the Oatmeal, so that should be okay.

i'm glad that i have Monday off. i had a moment today at work where i was literally staring at the screen, paralyzed, unable to remember how to read a file into a python dictionary (i.e. a pretty basic thing that i learned how to do in my intro class almost a year ago and have done many many times). C called it: it's anxiety. i am having a bit of a crisis since all the worst outcomes i imagined in 2016 are manifesting one by one.

also my right arm is pretty sad (stress tension); the knittas suggested switching up my mouse hand. since i use an ergo mouse normally, i ordered a lefty. i hooked it up tonight and so far the buttons are intuitive but doing things like selecting is awkward. either it's going to improve my coordination with my left hand or i'm going to get way more proficient with keyboard navigation. either or both is good.

the other day i put some of the bavarian cream mix into popsicle molds. it's pretty damn good frozen. do they still make Jell-O pudding pops?* because it's like a much better version of the vanilla pudding pops, without the icy shell. talk about a specific sense memory sticking around, it's been a good 30 years since i've had one.

*those make me think of Bill Cosby because he was the face of the launch ad campaign. it's interesting to remember that rapist used to be America's dad.

Current Location: Command Station
Current Music: the dryer

i meant to write every day, but i didn't know how very boring life would be.

i bought a desk and made a space for it in the bedroom. we had to reshuffle some bookcases, but otherwise it wasn't too bad to come up with the space.

now i can put work out of sight, have a whiteboard on the wall, and we have a table again. plus i don't have to have an ethernet cable running across the living room. i am at the table with my not-work computer and it feels great.

desk is a 40in wide standing desk i found on amazon. it took two people to put together (i suppose it could have been one with the aid of something to prop pieces in place) but was otherwise easy and is very sturdy/wobble-free.

our release at work went out with no major technical issues. we're all catching our breath.

social distancing day one went reasonably well. toughest thing was that my bluetooth headphones lost their charge during a conference call with 600+ people on it, and the great-great grandboss sounded like an alien sound effect until i figured out what was going on.

at game tonight, B brought disinfectant wipes to clean the dice* and other things we share. we have the homemade hand sanitizer by the door, and as he was rubbing his hands he mentioned that his wife could only find wintergreen scented rubbing alcohol––at home his hands smell like his teeth.** mood was generally good; play went well even if i'm a little frustrated with our remote player. (he drinks more than i would like since he doesn't have to drive.)

i started late for the second week in a row because i was finishing up my homework. as i write this, it's two minutes to the deadline and only two other people have posted the public part of the assignment. it's weird to me - this is a continuing ed class for adults, we should all be there by choice. i feel like there's a surprising number of people in it who don't seem to be taking it seriously.

this week i took in GitHub stickers to share, since we had done a few assignments that required us to create accounts and i only got two or three takers...and one of them i had to explain that octocat is the logo. of the website. that we're required to use for the class. (i took the rest to work, where they made many people very happy.)

*Fantasy Flight Star Wars has specialty dice, so we have a shared pool of them to use rather than everyone owning an identical set.
**I scented ours with some orange essential oil, but not very much. your hands smell like you might have eaten an orange recently.

travel ban is on at work. waiting for confirmation from the grandboss, but it looks like I won't be going to Vegas.

Current Mood: disappointed

I'm still figuring out how to do Wednesdays, but I think this was a good one.
Work: massively busy and included the triumph of getting a highly-motivated dev to do some reverse-engineering for me. now everyone can enjoy TypeScript highlighting.
Home: went out for dinner and drinks with C, then walked the dog. it was lovely.
School: triple-checked my code, wrote the companion paper, got a copy-edit pass and turned it all in - while cuddling in bed with C and the dog.

* * *
since it is reading day:
I recently finished Galaxy's Edge: Black Spire and it was Not Good. i had picked it up to read because it's the location setting for the current Star Wars game. as a setting book, with descriptions of the location and the various NPCs, i think it's useful and i recommended it to the GM for that purpose. as a book-book its plot was full of holes, the end made no sense, and there was a lot of product placement. Black Spire is the new Star Wars "land" at the Disney theme parks, you see. like, in the book they make a deal about eating at Ronto Roasters.* in fact pretty much all of the food and drink offerings and restaurants are name-checked. *cringe*

*which sounds both delicious and like great fun. i do actually want to go. THEY SELL LOTH CAT PLUSHIES.

Current Mood: accomplished
Current Location: Family Cuddle Platform
Current Music: Leela snoring

Dammit. I caught up and then went and missed yesterday anyway. It was a slightly disconcerting day due to a minor support ticket turning into a voyage of the damned into an abandoned GitHub project and motherfucking npm. (I don't know much JavaScript but due to years of making local builds of preproduction code, I hate node.js dependencies with the fire of a thousand suns.) Then I ran to Monday night yoga to discover a dark and empty space. So I went back to work for a while since I lose time on Tuesdays. Got home at the same time without having done yoga. Anyway, routine destroyed.
* * *
Perfect score on my first Python assignment. This Canvas thing showing your grades in real time is pretty compelling. (Because I am old, I've never had an online hub for school.)

My struggling seatmate was missing at tonight's class. I wonder if she dropped out.

Current Mood: cold
Current Location: 3rd & James
Current Music: Some dude ranting

it took three person-hours to determine that my intractable formatting problem was CRLF.* not because any of us were using Windows, but because our text editor was defaulting to Windows encoding. *facepalm*

* Windows uses CRLF as the hidden end of line format, and Unix uses LF. the terminal shell assumes Unix endings and so produces mystery new lines in output when it encounters CRLF. woe betide the team that mixes the two.

Current Location: The 40

My work project during the holidays was to write baby's first real automation script.

As of today it works in all environments, it's documented, it's in source control. (Turns out my greatest obstacle was an error in the authentication process.)

I also merged my personal GitHub repo into a shared one and nothing exploded. I even managed to exit vi.

Now let's see how my demo goes tomorrow.

Current Mood: accomplished
Current Location: Wayward
Current Music: The Smiths

there is a longer story to tell about how it all came together, but the important thing is that i finished my first week at new employer The Eyrie, i love them and they love me.

i bought my monthly bus pass on the way home and this weekend i sticker up my laptop and figure out the touchbar.

Current Mood: ecstatic
Current Location: the 40
Current Music: Peggy Carter work icon didn't properly express my emotional state

Slack is down. Oh no! What do?

Thor says Send a raven

i'm in love with The Great British Bake Off. (that's "The Great British Baking Show" to PBS viewers. no links, wikipedia and pretty much everything else online is full of spoilers.) if you loved the Japanese Iron Chef for its combination of food porn and a window into another culture, and you also enjoy the human interest segments during the Olympics, then you just might love this show. (they even have little segments where they visit food historians! food. historians.) yes, it's reality tv where there are challenges and people get eliminated. but it's a clean competition - no inducing of conflict, no creation of rivalries or villains, no nasty judges. the people competing actually cheer for each other and help each other along.* they hug the people who get eliminated at the end of the episode. one of the judges totally teared up talking about the awesomeness of the 2015 winner. it is sweet and soothing comfort tv. the 2014 season is on Netflix and Amazon Prime.

this gif of a penguin being tickled

this article about livestock protector dogs keeping fairy penguins safe from predation

C has been listening to Rivers of London books on audiobook, so i can finally burble at him about them! (he's only a couple in, so that one thing hasn't happened yet and it's killing me.) these might be books that the

buhrger would like? for me they scratch the same itch as the Laundry.

today is Tuesday. for some reason, i was convinced that it was Thursday,and cubemate B believed that it was Friday. we have been making jokes about this all day. meanwhile, cubemate J is really excited about the computer he's building for himself, and is going to make an alicorn mod for the case. i am pretty thoroughly delighted that a guy who is older than me and really into sports is also unabashedly into Twilight Sparkle.

also, i have a dog. she is energetic and exasperating and ridiculously cute and affectionate. dog.

*i don't recommend any of the regional clones that i've tried. there's something very specific about Brit culture plus these judgesand these hosts. GBBO is where it's at.

i'm spending some time today reading through customer feedback. i decided to see if the French pages are reporting any different issues than the English-language ones.

kind of fun, in that even with my rusty skills i can follow perfectly well since i know the context. but i kept seeing "svp" in the posts and racking my brain for what that could be. i didn't recognize it as part of our product terminology. i haven't kept up on slang vocabulary. i was rolling through what it would sound like aloud, thinking that it might be like "K-7". (when i was studying seriously, CDs were still relatively unusual. music came on cassette tapes. say K and 7 aloud with the French pronunciation and you get something very close to "cassette". it wasn't the "official" word but it was on all the music store signage. i love this kind of adaptation.)

finally i ran Google Translate to see if it caught it for me.

"svp merci" is "please and thank you".

svp = s'il vous plait, the version of "please" you would use with someone you don't know. d'oh.

Current Mood: dorky

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ironymaiden

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Page generated Jan. 30th, 2026 07:05 am

the girly who shall end all girls

please scream inside your heart

Entries tagged with work

You don’t gotta say you love Pulp Fiction / I already know

five things

(no subject)

back to school

(no subject)

not an update but an update

Ivanovna is God

a day in the life

now the summoning circle is on the sinister side

(no subject)

day one 64/366

59/366 no surprise

29/366

27/366

3/366 he sed/she sed

2/366 robots to dig ditches

a very good week

the sky is falling

Things that are making me happy this week

what's this about the senior vice president?

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November 2024

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