Tag: work

Crankypantsing, Photography

Little Clouds

Shelly

Little Clouds

The weather was gorgeous today, if a little on the warm side. It’s supposed to be even warmer tomorrow, which isn’t exactly a tragedy, but it means we’re likely to “enjoy” another round of AC load shedding at work. When that happens, we open the door between the two towers and use fans to circulate cool air from the West tower into our area in the East tower. Even with stealing cooler air from other areas, it gets hot and humid in my department. And a new wrinkle is that something–a mouse, maybe?–has apparently died in the ceiling outside the door between the two towers. If we have to open that door tomorrow, it will be hot and stinky.

The horrible smell has been reported to building management, but these are the same folks who put trash bags over leaky sinks in lieu of fixing them, so I’m not holding out much hope. I fully expect to come in to work one day to find the ceiling of the West tower draped with black plastic, which of course will do exactly NOTHING to get rid of the dead animal smell.

We can blame all of this on state budget cuts, which is an especially infuriating subject right now. Us worker bees–at least the lucky ones–got a whopping 1.5% pay raise this year. It’s not much, but it’s better than nothing, especially considering that salaries have been frozen for awhile. We’ve been told to prepare for RIFs, which could begin in early fall, so I wasn’t expecting any raise.

And then I saw in the local paper today that the president of the university was given a 21.8% salary increase. We’re preparing to lay off people, we haven’t been able to hire anyone in my department in the last 2-3 years despite losing several through retirement, facilities budgets have been slashed (hence the AC outages), and we’re constantly being asked to do more with less, in ways that directly impact people like me. Not only is it ONLY the worker bees who are expected to sacrifice, but then we find out that the Big Giant Head is getting a huge reward? That’s demoralizing.

So, because of budget cuts at the state level (thanks Mitch Daniels, you smug, smarmy asshole!), we’re likely to roast tomorrow and we’re going to have to smell some kind of stinky dead animal while doing so. Just kill me now!

Crankypantsing, Videos

Still Hot

Shelly

It was 900 damned degrees at work again today, and I’m not exaggerating. Okay, maybe it was only 83F with 82% humidity, but that’s HOT. Someone opened the door to the west tower (we’re located in the cross section between the two towers) to try to suck some of the cool air from that side of the building. It worked, sort of, but it also created a breeze which set off the pinwheel atop a coworker’s fake ficus tree.

I am not a fan of pinwheels or fake foliage, so this monstrosity makes me cry. Every day. Especially when she changes the decorations on it. It’s now sporting tiny flip-flops and sunglasses. *boggle* The pinwheel on top has actually given me nightmares. Anyway, I thought I’d share the joy. Or misery.

(Video shot with Camera+ for iPhone and processed with 8mm.)

Crankypantsing, Photography

Snack of Champions

Shelly

Snack of Champions

Yes, it was radishes (and more red peppers) and a 3 Musketeers. Today was that kind of day. Thankfully all the annoyances were minor, but they were still annoyances and therefore, you know, ANNOYING.

I catalog books, and the books I work with are brought up from another department and placed on my incoming shelves. There are four of them. There is a new shipment every Thursday. I don’t usually get all four shelves cleared off each week, but that’s not a big deal because the weekly shipment is not very large. Just 100 books. So last week I cleared off one shelf and about 1/3 of a second shelf. I’ve been doing it this way for months (years, actually), and one empty shelf is almost always all they need. If that! So it should be plenty of room for the incoming shipment, right? Only I got an email on Friday from the person in charge of bringing up my books, saying that there wasn’t enough room and if there isn’t going to be enough room would I please inform her ahead of the shipment so she doesn’t waste her time. The whole thing was kind of snarky, I thought[1]. I replied that there was an empty shelf plus part of a second shelf, is that not enough space? Apparently not! She wrote me back, saying that this last shipment was extra large, because it contained a bunch of multi-volume sets.

Do you see anything wrong with this picture? If the shipment is larger than normal, shouldn’t she be warning me that she needs more shelf space than usual? And anyway, I’m not psychic! Usually one shelf is all they need for any one week’s shipment. Why would I worry about clearing off more than that if it’s not normally needed?

So I ended up emptying the entire second shelf, which she said would be sufficient. I double-checked the shelves before I left today, to see if she’d brought up the shipment. And yes, indeedy, she did. One shelf’s worth, as usual. What. The. Fuck. I give up.

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1. To be fair, maybe she wasn’t being snarky. Maybe it was all in my head. I often can’t tell with this woman whether it’s her or me.