2000-07-05

Buzz, Buzz, Buzz.

Still seems like there was so much to do this past weekend and no time to get much accomplished. I suppose it didn't help that the weekend started out with a screamer project at work. It was five o'clock on Friday (a very inauspicious time), and my bosses casually requested a collection of some of our department's ad work, along with response rate data, for a Monday 10 AM meeting with the President of the company.

Somedays I live in a Dilbert cartoon.

But to add to the surreality of it all, at 5:30 PM, a sprinkler head was knocked off the ceiling. (I don't know exactly how but we have our suspicions.) So I tried to complete my work in my office nearby while much of the department is, well, underwater. Vacuum hoses were going, fans were running, people were standing around shouting over the noise...this is why offices have doors.

Around 9 PM the Roommate was sending me plaintive ICQ messages from home ("So hungry...everything is (gasp) getting dark...") and I get hit with the realization that I'm nowhere near finished. Now, I'm a devoted worker, but I'm also a firm believer that my weekends should be my own. But what must be done must be done. I sent an email out -- handy tip: whenever you work really late, be sure to send an email to your employers so they know you were in the office at that hour -- and arrange for sushi to be ordered for our standard Friday Night Sushi Bar dinner. Passed out by midnight, which is becoming a Friday night theme.

Got up, drank somewhat more coffee than most weekday mornings, and waded in to work for about 5 more hours. (Industrial size fans or not, squishy carpet is just not happy carpet.)

I cannot for the life of me remember what the Boyfriend and I did that evening. It's not even in my PalmPilot. (grin) I think I helped with some Photoshop work he was doing. Hopefully I won't get in trouble for not remembering what we did besides, um...nevermind.

(Note to self: When using the PalmPilot as a mirror, pressing the power button does not turn off your own face. Sometimes I myself wonder what I've been smoking.)

We hit two barbecues Sunday -- why they always seem to happen on the same day, I don't know -- a VP at my company at his expensive house in Marin County, and one at his co-worker's house here in the City. I felt a little out of place up in Marin. My boss and his friends are nice and all, and I don't think I made a fool of myself, but I never quite got over the feeling of being a different 'class' than these people. Not necessarily lower, just different. An executive in our sales department who was there congratulated me on my promotion but made some sarcastic comment on how much of a "corporate climber" I was. Oh, other people noticed that, then? I guess when you wear coveralls, dress in black, and paint your nails, people assume that you aren't going to follow the corporate line. Funny that.

I had a much better time at the Boyfriend's coworker's barbecue, but that could have been that the people there were drunker.

Worked a full day on the Third of July. Most of the office who did show up left early. But my email inbox is a little less frightening. Got some well deserved time in kicking Diablo's ass that evening.

Oh, I almost forgot. Most aggravating of all? The President of the company never showed up to my boss' meeting that morning to see the presentation I'd worked two days on. He was out on vacation.

Saw the San Francisco Mime Troupe's show in Dolores Park on the Fourth. Every year the Boyfriend has tried to get me there, so I've finally given in. My defenses are weakening. It was a cute show, filled with leftist humor ("Hey Hey! Ho Ho! The Corporate Industrial Agri-Business Hegemony has got to go!") and a good way to approach a current political bugaboo (genetically modified food, in this case.) But it felt a little too preachy in parts. And I was reminded that I'm not quite as bloody a bleeding-heart liberal than I was once in my youth.

We then kept working on the Boyfriend's extended Photoshop project. One of the bad things about doing graphics professionally is that you get drafted (or even volunteer) to help with other people's projects. But you know also that I'll do anything for the Boyfriend. So I was there late. Makes for a sometimes difficult Monday. Wait, Not Monday, Wednesday.

Wednesday rolls around, and there I sit, having a second Monday (but worse, this time) and desperately looking for another weekend. Soon, soon...

2003-03-29 - Moving Notice
2002-06-04 - Accordians and Ambassadors (Diary Fragment)
2002-05-24 - Manias (Diary Fragment)
2002-05-09 - See this little island here?
2002-04-24 - Bored and Drippy.