Damn.  It's rare that a single person binds together so many people.  Who among us would say a bad thing about Carlin?  Oh, he had his bitter period, sure, but it only made his comedy that much better.

I'm not alone in this, but I'll miss him.  One of the last of the truly great standups that did more than just make people laugh.

BREAK

I spent some QT in the home office on Saturday morning scraping the shit back into easier to manage piles.  Shockingly, I freed up enough room to where it looks like a room again, instead of a loose collection of shit that happens to be held together by some walls.

We put in the air conditioners once I got done with that little bit of nonsense.  I vowed this year I would not be the one to set off the "AIR CONDITIONERS NOW" alarm.  I did not.  I waited until she said to do it.

We had a few hot days, but nothing unmanageable.  I began to worry when the aquarium rose from it's normal hovering around 76 to hovering around 80, but there appeared to be no oxygenation problems so I let it go.  Luckily, Mrs. NFB jumped on it at the end of the week and said the time had come.

So, sitting in my newly cooled office, looking at that free space and the pile still left, I got a wild hair and decided it's time to do it all up right.

And so began the collapse of the pile.  Breaking down mostly empty boxes and putting things into boxes that fit them rather than having big piles of almost empty boxes that are "this type of thing in this box" and so on and so forth.

My plan is to free up two of the walls, paint them, rip out the carpet along them and start the new flooring I have planned, move the rest of the shit to that side, do up the other side, then get the shelving units in place and empty the boxes.  Anything I don't want on the shelves?  GONE.  I got no time, no place, no space, no patience.  Clean it.

Mrs. NFB stated she was super excited to see my flooring put into practice.  We'll see what I end up doing.  I've been thinking half the room one type, the other half another type, but we'll see when I get the colors on the walls.

Ought to be grand fun.

BREAK

Idiot in receiving - and that's shockingly close to his real name - pushed all the wrong buttons this morning.  Refused to call the helpdesk.  Called my phone twenty times before I got here this morning, never leaving a voicemail.  (Call Logs ROCK!)  Then sent a "look what I can do" style email to his entire department, all of IT, and both our managers to complain about the same report that's always gone on hold since the beginning of time and he can't remember.

We, being the dutiful IT department we are, ignored it because we've been telling people instant response on the help desk phone, and fuck you to everything else.

An hour and a half later he emails again with a "I'M STILL WAITING," and you could tell he's right on the edge of adding, "BITCHES."

So, I release the damn reports because I just don't have the patience to talk to him.

Not realizing he'd already pushed the bear into the corner and he had sharp claws he wasn't afraid of using, Idiot sends ANOTHER email saying he got the reports and it's not right that he should have to contact IT to do so and it's not right that no one responds to him and he never used to have to contact IT to get these reports (even though, it's ALWAYS gone on hold) and we should be more responsive and blah, blah, blah fucking blah.

So, I, finally having gone over the edge, respond.  I give him a detailed rant about calling the help desk for instant response and that calling our individual phones or sending an email automatically gets you put on the bottom of the list for the day because the person on the help desk is meant to be instant response, the other people are on projects that day.  I also detailed exactly what he has to do to get his reports himself, YET AGAIN and that it is not IT's responsibility to do his job for him, but we'd be happy to help if he'd just contact the person who is in charge of helping for that day.

Then I went and warned Destro that the shit was about to go down, and why.

Sure enough, Idiot's in his boss's office in record time bitching about IT not respecting him.  Idiot's boss already has an idea of what's going on because of the "look what I can do" email chain from hell, plus Destro had already been in contact with him about the situation and told him that if his people can't bother to call the help desk phone, they can't be helped.

Idiot's boss calls down Destro and they have a closed door with Idiot.

A few minutes later Destro strolls down to my cube.  "Good job with that email, man.  That was seriously awesome."

Then he tells me a few stupid user stories of his own.  Of which, there are many.  Camaraderie.  I thought we were past that.

BREAK

Our insurance agent retired recently.  The new gal, just taking over, is eager.  Chomping at the bit, ready to throw down, agent style, over every little thing.  SELL SELL SELL is the name of the game, with everybody and everything.

I'm scheduled to finally meet her tonight, unable to put it off any longer.  Mrs. NFB refuses to go along because she doesn't want to be sold anything.  I said, "that's easy enough, just say, 'no thanks.'"

She has difficulty with that at times.

So, I'll go, nod my head politely, say no when it's all said and done, and that'll be that.  I still won't like it.  But, you have to tolerate stupid insurance agent bullshit in order to have insurance.  Sucky, but true.  At least I'm forcing her to come in out of office hours to do it.  HA!

OK, that's enough.  Outz.