Friday, November 6, 2009

Today, Friday November 6.


I don’t know if this will make it into the blog, or just end up as a way for me to vent on a daily basis, but we will see. Years ago when I worked for Lily and she would go on her month long vacations I would e-mail her with my comedic take on the comings and goings of the office and our team specifically. I found it very therapeutic, and she seemed to like it (though that isn’t something she would admit to this day as she won’t accept my friend request on FB, but that is a different story all together).

On the way to work this morning, I was behind a motorcycle. Let’s just say I hate driving behind motorcycles. I have “Start(ed) seeing Motorcycles”, but I hate them none the less. They seem so unpredictable. I have noticed that there is never a good motorcycle to be behind, or near on the road. If they aren’t the type weaving in and out of traffic, nearly scraping the paint off of your car as they play pac-man on the road, they are super cautious and don’t just drive. This is the kind I was behind this morning, and I have a hard time really describing what irks me so bad about it. I think it is that I don’t want to get too close behind them as I am afraid that their wheel will get caught on my bumper and cause some strange event to happen. Likewise, they don’t follow people as close perhaps for the same reason. Luckily, she (yes, it was a woman but I am not sure if that makes it worse) took a different exit than me and we parted ways. I hate commuting, I really need to look into getting my ass out of bed early enough to ride my bike again.

I just got out of our teams monthly meeting, which breaks down to the 3 Salt Lake people sitting in a conference room around a phone listening to the California people talk. These meetings usually don’t bother me, and sometimes even engage me. Not today. Today I didn’t have the patience for it! We start out with an ice breaker where a question is asked and we go around the room and answer it. Today the question was number quiz about our daily work loads, and the person that guessed the closest number without going over wins. Simple --- in theory. These people act like they don’t understand what is happening and ask a million questions. The quiz question is about something you do DAILY, what don’t you understand? Should we be worried about your performance?
I will stop complaining about this meeting now, because I did come out of it $25 richer because my process improvement idea rocked.

My boss will be doing a reverse Wizard of Oz production for the next two weeks where she will be leaving Oz (or Zion as Salt Lake has also been referred to) and heading back to Kansas. We decided to all go to lunch as a team for this occasion and were throwing out ideas of places to go. In the back of my mind I was always thinking it would be Davids. Why would we go anywhere else? The food is good and if your day really sucks you can order a drink (one drink is permitted at lunch per our company policy. Awesome, right?). The vegetarian of the group suggests Smash Burger. I am not quite sure what the draw is for her as everything on the menu contains meat; the salads, the chicken sandwiches and their specialty, the burger. Her defense was that she would get a side salad. Um … really? You go to a place that specializes in feeding carnivores so much that they don’t even offer a veggie patty and order a side salad? Not sure I get it. Now I am a recovering vegetarian so you would think I would understand it. And I do understand being willing to go to a place that everyone else has agreed on and just finding something to eat for yourself, but suggesting it? No! We ended up going to David’s for lunch just as I predicted. I ordered a cheeseburger and a Corona, it was blissful!

Oh, and my picture of the day (I took one, so why not) is of Riley and his birthday drink.