February 3, 2000

I've made a decision.

Are you ready for it?

OK. My decision is that I am going to stay at this job until I save up enough money to buy my own car. Then, when I have my own car, I am going to quit this job and become a substitute teacher. I am excited about this plan, because at the end of it I will have a new car and new job.

I came up with this plan yesterday during a meeting. Why was I thinking up plans for my life during the meeting, instead of helpfully participating in the meeting? Oh, I don't know, probably because my presence there was completely unnecessary. I think I said two things the entire time.

Right now at work we're in our 6-week update cycle, and this one is pissing me off more than usual. Mostly because I'm doing the jobs of two people, which really sucks. I'm doing my regular job, which is editing other people's stuff and formatting it into our style, but then I'm also doing the job of "putting together all our promotions into PageMaker." Which REALLY sucks. Because I'll get this marked up copy full of changes I have to make, and then I'll make them, and then I'll get it back AGAIN with just as many changes. "Oh, these just occurred to me, would you mind making these changes really quick?"

Unfortunately there are all these deadlines associated with all of this crap, so since I'm doing two jobs, that means that one of the jobs is getting shafted, time-wise, and THAT means I'm probably going to have to come in this weekend.

I bet you're wondering right now, what I've accomplished this morning so far (it is currently noon). Well, I'll tell you.

I have:

• Spent twenty minutes in a conference where my boss asked me to try to get Acrobat to do something I know it's incapable of doing.
• Spent 45 minutes on the phone to Adobe tech support, only to confirm that Acrobat is, in fact, not capable of doing the thing that I said it was incapable of doing.
• Spent another twenty minutes listening to Theresa tell me that she knows a way we can get it to work by using PageMaker instead.
• Spent another twenty minutes actually doing the thing in PageMaker. Explained to boss that doing it this way will take approximately 394830 hours.
• Spent five minutes answering phone and talking to boss who had additional questions about the "new" Acrobat/PageMaker process.
• Opened Microsoft Word for the first time all morning.
• Before actually doing any work in MS Word, spent another five minutes talking to boss who had more additional questions about the "new" Acrobat/PageMaker process.
• Spent an hour and a half working on more edits for the PageMaker document that I thought was finished yesterday.
• Spent five more minutes answering the phone and talking to boss, ending with him telling me to just come in his office because his speaker phone wasn't working right.
• Spent ten minutes in boss's office watching him demonstrate "cool new trick" he figured out how to do in Microsoft Word. Thought ironic thoughts.
• Spent two minutes getting a drink of water. Thought the entire time about what a waste of time it is to have to eat.
• Spent another half hour working on PageMaker document that I thought was done twenty minutes ago. Theresa pointed out that one of the graphics was 1/16th of an inch from being centered, and another one of the graphics needed to be moved 1/16th of an inch up.
• Spent five minutes plotting the elaborate deaths of everyone in the building.
• Inadvertently made nasty face when Theresa entered my office, which she noticed and giggled about. If only she knew.
• Spent twenty minutes writing this entry.

Exciting, no?

My boss told me this morning that he's contemplating hiring someone new to work on the PageMaker stuff, but that he doesn't know when this will happen and not to hold my breath. Frankly, if he got someone else to work on the PageMaker stuff, I would probably start to like my job, because I would not be doing two people's jobs anymore. So, if they hire someone else to do that stuff, I might put my substitute teaching plan on hold.

But I'm not holding my breath.

THE FORUM: Somebody else ask a question. I'm busy.

OLD FORUM: What you'd all rather be doing.

WEIRD FORUM: What the hell is a "flipper"?

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