Tag: UUorldCon

the freshmen

I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about life and what not. More so than usual, as it were. Basically thinking where I’m going to go once I leave Paul and what direction my life will be heading at that time. i have been sitting on the fence watching both sides and I’m not quite sure which way to lean, if any.
several themes have been swimming in my head, such as friendship and how to be good. both have been ping ponging against my head like there is no tomorrow. i need to deconstruct.
m. and i got into a disagreement if you will, this week and our relationship is now considerably strained. it seems that no matter what i say, it comes out all wrong to him. at least that is what i think.
coupled with my own lovely sense of paranoia, i am probably making it into a much major deal than i thought or think it is. the bottom line is, we are not speaking to each other right now and it hurts. i have thought back and recognized times when there were weeks/months when we didn’t speak to each other. the difference being that you sometimes don’t know what you have until it’s almost gone and then it wasn’t almost gone and now i feel like it is, I realized that he was a better friend than I gave credit for. He’s not an angel by any chance and I’ll mention that in a second but still, he’s one of my closest friends and I’d hate to lose him over something that could be worked out. i think.
the second incident this week was when b. said something she shouldn’t have in public. she, in short, inferred i was sleeping or wanting to sleep or want to start an affair with a mutual friend. now, she will tell you that she is not inferring anything, other than she thinks it’s “odd” that i want to spend time with said friend. What she failed to do was put together how it was circumstantial evidence. such as, said friend and i hung out together a few weeks back because b. and her bf went to dinner without us and we both had made plans with them. Mutual friend and i got together a few days later as he had left some stuff at our house. I also invited mutual friend to dinner a few times as well as to go back up to Baltimore with me to see more of the Inner Harbor. I’m such a little heathen!
I plainly, really, do not like people who sit there and run their mouths and think it’s okay, especially when it’s inferring shit that isn’t happening just because they think it’s “odd”. It down right angers me. Paul is a very temperamental guy and gets blown out of shape if the wind blows wrong, so saying crap like this in front of him isn’t doing anyone any good.
In short, please don’t spread my bidness around if you don’t know all the facts. I tried to communicate to her how I didn’t appreciate what she was saying. She said she didn’t start it, i did by mentioning i asked him to lunch. See, personally, I don’t make the correlation between how asking someone to lunch = hot sex. But apparently it does somewhere somehow. At any rate, she then started jumping down my throat about something that didn’t have anything to do with me. When I mentioned to her that this has nothing to do with me, she got huffed and said how i should care if i care about j (her boyfriend). This woman is all over the damn place. The amazing thing is that everyone but her and her bf see how her words were wrong. Whatever. I told her bottom line is we will agree to disagree and she invited me to tell her what she did was wrong — but at this point I don’t think it matters.
Since bad things come in threes, the final thing was at work. Apparently my next up level manager is either having issues with me or something else is going on, i have zero clue. The reason I am saying this is because she called me into her office with my immediate supervisor (which I found out later that she was not supposed to) and started comparing me to co-workers who no longer work there, which was an insult to me. I got miffed because not only did she remove my team lead status, but my new backup is not up to par technically. She said that she did it for my backup to have a bar to reach to, i blanched. I don’t buy this BS any longer. She also said my lateness is a problem — which I mentioned that there were several co-workers who repeatedly were late every day as well as those who took 2hr lunches as well as those who leave work 1/2 hour+ early. I said hey, if I’m in the wrong, fine. But i want to make sure that you are being fair across the board here. She said she’ll look into it. Right. I’m sure she will. I am not quite sure what I’m going to do about that little instance but I’ve gone and gotten counseling from non-involved persons. I guess my quandary is, why kill myself to protect myself for a job that i feel burned out by?
friends classification:
COWARDLY LION-TYPE: M. falls into this type. You know these kinds, very easy to spot. They are there through thick and thin as long as it doesn’t concern them. But when the chips really fall or you try and have some sort of substantial conversation with them, it falls fucking apart. They curl up and hide. I’ve noticed that when I push M., M. doesn’t push back. I know his issues but he seems to timid to really take charge and be there, really, as a friend. example: He offered his place to stay in case shit got bad with Paul and then reneged it. Said his sister thought it was a bad idea. Too coincidental for me, thanks. I could be reading too much into this, but hey, that’s my charm.
ME-ME’S: B. and a few other of my friends fall into this type. It is never about you, it’s about them. If you fall and break your ankle, they broke same ankle but worse. It’s competition with them. And it’s about attention gathering, and people buy into this lock stock and two broken barrels. The times I’ve watched people get suckered in to this and I just want to shake them for being silly.
Fakies: Maybe I should just walk the fence.

Infatuated with a lunatic and cornered by the muse

I’ll warn you, if cornered, I’ll scratch my way out of the pen
Wired, an animal
The claustrophobia begins
You think I’m scared of girls
Well maybe
But I’m not afraid of you
You want to scare me then you’ll cling to me no matter what I do
Tell you a secret
They shared a needle once or twice
I loved her, she loved me
We slept together a couple of times
You think I’m proud of this
Well maybe
But the shame you never lose
Infatuated with a lunatic and cornered by the muse
And it goes down every night
This must be what jail is really like
And I will scratch my way out of this pen, again
Lonely?
Maybe
Or maybe not
It all depends
Your ideal, your image
Your definition of a friend
If what you’re shoveling is company
Then I’d rather be alone
Resentment always goes much further than it was supposed to go
what jail is like by afghan whigs

I don’t know what has been my deal lately with Afghan Whigs, especially Greg Dulli. This is the second night in a row that I’ve been sitting here listening to various mp3s that I have spanning nearly their whole career. I felt like, to be honest, my whole life of emotion listening to their music. I felt pain, sorrow, pity, fear, love.
What was worse (or cute if you are into that sort of thing) is that on the way into work today, I was bopping along to them in the car cranked up and car dancing. I’m a wonderful car dancer BY FAR. Which brings me to this past saturday night: so there is this live band playing at my party, which is total coincidence. I won’t mention the details but in short those in my party were COMPLAINING about the loud music. Hell even paul acts like an old man when it comes to listening to music. The car stereo can’t be above x or else he pitches a fit. Home stereo is the same thing. Right now I’ve got head phones on so I can enjoy the sultry tones of that which is Greg Dulli.
It’s not really a choice of music but when I listen to tunes I want to feel like I’m either at a show, being sung to, being fucked while at the show or feel like i’m being possessed. I want to feel ALIVE when i listen to music, not this pamby ass shit that they pass for music these days. pfft on that.
let me in, i’m cold. all dressed up and no where to go.
Today was the grandiose day that I had to go to Anger Management training, and to be truthful, i thought (and expected) it to be a joke. The joke it turns out, was on me.
I hate these interpersonal training classes they give at work. For the most part, they are always taught by undereducated fuckwits who keep it boring and snoozefest. So yes, I was pleasantly suprised when we actually had someone teach the class who held a doctrate and worked in the field of mental health and has been teaching this for years! Woah. Impressive. Makes me wonder what WCOM does sometimes with its few brain cells.

i care because?

Today I got called into the managers office at work, and I knew why I was being called and it was not really that big of surprise to me. I was called in because of my “attitude” and apparently to sum it up telling sales reps to go fuck themselves is a bad idea. Very bad apparently but you know I’m very well aware of what i said and when is said it.
Work-wise, I’m at the end of my rope. I’m angry to start with because I got bumped from being a team lead. Now this doesn’t sound so much like a big deal but, it was because it was important to me. I’ve got this sinking feeling that raises are going to be long in coming because of the new power structure. Off track, anyways, so that’s part of it. Secondly, I’m noticing some coworkers that I am in contact with who apparently feel it’s necessary to speak down and to dummy down everything. It’s not that I don’t like being told what to do, I just resent it, when it feels like i’m being talked down to.
It has also came very apparent that I do not speak english. Really. I speak Lisa- ease. Things that should be very clear because of specific circumstances I have were basically laid out in the open, it has been apparent that it is not. I also dislike being second guessed and knowing I’m right in the first place.
The problem is, literally, if I am having acute paranoia about these things or if they really are true. My thinking as of late has been not that everyone is out to get me, or that it was really negative but more so that x follows y follows z, even though majority of the time it’s all just me being nuts or complete coincidence. But i string the events together anyways to see what happens.
I’ve also been having weird little quirks that are kind of getting to me, like I have to hold the arm rail when I walk down the stairs or I will fall. It’s not because I’m a klutz, it is because I truly feel i’m going to fall and break my freaking neck. And when I was smoking, jesus was that a bitch since i had to walk down a few flights of stairs.

anger management

in case you haven’t been keeping track, the company i work for “WorldCom”, is going through some hard times. Namely, that we lost our CEO (yay!), got a new one (Generation Sidgemore) and our stock is now tanking at 1.48 down from 46 dollars when i started back in Novemeber of 1999. Many people have talked about the future of the company and about how where we are going. WCom nee UUNet owns over 60% of the internet backbone. We are one of the few tier one level providers still standing after the dotcom breakdown. But bad managment, bad morale in the company, bad planning finanncially lead to the drop in our stock, people not giving a shit about what is going on. The funny part, at leastto me is that they want me to take Anger Management class.
Apparently they feel that I’m too angry to work with and deal within our natural work enviroment. But fuck, can you blame me? No raise for nearly 2 years. No promotions, no merit raises. No chance of moving anywhere within the company. Can’t leave the company for fear of what doesn’t exist outside the system. Everything goes to fucking shit in a basket and it’s like they make you feel like that for every buck you earn for the company revenue wise, it’s fucking pointless because you’ll never see even a penny of that buck.
I know our managers do care and i know that second level managers care but once you start moving up farther the chain, it’s fucking hopeless. I mean if they cared, Bernie wouldn’t have gotten us into this mess and I wouldn’t be complaining right now.
The general consensus is that WCOM is goign to declare bankruptcy but (and this is a big but) concerning our current status in which we have gazillion percentage of the internet, the work census has been that the govn’t will bail us out (either them or Deutsch telecom).
And people wonder why i’m bitter? It’s pretty hard to have faith in something, even as stable as WCOM that falls fucking apart on you.
x0x0
lisa

pink and red

last night i was supposed to do a cut over for a customer at 4am EST, which thankfully never happened.
but thanks to the part i was supposed to do the cut, i took today off for a ‘personal’ day because i felt like i was on the verge of killing people. good thing too.
so i went to ikea and blew 400 on stuff for the house (including a kandinsky print for paul).
i’ve retired the powerpuff bathroom gear and now my bathroom is bright as fuck. i also bought new duvet cover in red and pink and bought brand new pink sheets. paul said he wanted to spooge all over the sheets just so i could get rid of him. i’ll take pictures tomorrow, because it really is bright.
we also rented ‘best in show’ which was supposed to be funny, but it’s only saving grace was that it had parker posey in it. i do realise that it’s a parody but, it really isn’t all that funny.
now i get to go brush my teeth with my sonic toothbrush.
for a friday night, i’m living large!
lisa

happy xmas eve

Today was one of those days where I went to work and got paid to goof off, eat fudge and smoke a lot.
Have I mentioned the horrors of my company? No? Well they cancelled the holiday party this year (some poor soul tried to set up a holiday potluck in our department but no one signed up…), health care has been detained for open enrollment due to “funding” and they even took our GODDAMN VENDING MACHINES! Free coffee went out the window as they are now replacing them with coffee machines (hence why our vending machine was removed — needed room for the coffee machine). Bonus structure has been rearranged. And the sad part? That MY department does FIFTYSIX PERCENT of the revenue for worldcom. Yes. It’s true. I say the company stats. WorldCOm has been in the black for the last three quarters and they are penny pinching to the point where you can feel the collective sigh as the holidays approach.
fucking eh!
So today was a waste.
They kept all of Wcom open but we yelled down “hello!” down Main St. (the main large hallway that connect all the buildings) and heard an echo back towards us. No one called us, as most businesses are closed or closing early on the eve of the holiday. So I did a site audit on myself and basically ate fudge, wrote personal email and smoked whenever I could. A friend of mine who works in a different department is a part-time Rabbi and he said it’s been pretty slow where he’s at as well.
So I left the joint a few minutes early and drove to the grocery store as Paul said he wanted to make creme brulee for dinner tonight (there are three of us and he’s cooking like there is 12..) and lemme tell you, the one if not the MAIN ONE reason I hate the holidays is how effing rude people get. Look, I’m sorry YOU waited to the last minute to get your xmas shopping done, food bought and gifts wrapped but don’t take your anger out on me. One of the reasons that people get so pissy this time of year pisses me off. I’m also a bit miffed because I had asked a friend of mine what she and her family would like for xmas and she said “instead of three small gifts can you just get me one expensive gift?”. I’m perturbed that she had the audacity to /ask/ it in that manner. I don’t mind helping someone else out but shit. I still haven’t even gotten gifts for my closest friends and now I feel effing OBLIGATED to get this thing for her. Feh. It angers me, as you can probably tell. But I don’t have the balls to tell her “no, sorry, can’t do that” because I already promised her we would. We being a few of us who are doing this. Paul’s all pissy because he’s like “well they don’t treat us well, xyz, why should we buy them something?” And I can see what he means — to a point. but I don’t quite, I can’t quite say no.
I’m not in the mood to write anymore. Haven’t been in awhile, so I’ll be back when I have something more worthwhile to say.
Happy Holidays.
x0x0x

things get even better

my manager just pulled me aside and told me she is leaving to spearhead a new group. so either I go with her (even though I am not familiar with the technology — yet) or I stay in install and see if I can be promoted. I’m not too happy about this because if they stick me with a shitty manager, my life will be doomed and I’m basically at the point that because of my seniority and status that the company can be a bit more flexible in my requests.

the fun never stops

so I’ve been losing weight and a few of my pants are hanging kind of low. because I have huge hips, belts look retarded and is not worth wearing because I do not have a waist and finding a normal belt to wear around the upper part of my hips is like asking for a chicken to give birth to a duck.
with that in mind, I’ve known about how baggy my pants are so I’ve been making sure of wearing long shirts/cardigans and basically making sure that my underwear is not hanging out. well apparently my efforts have have not been working because I got pulled outside to have a meeting with my manager today. Apparently the director of my department walked by my cube and saw that I was wearing leopard print undies — and that I should have a talking to. At first I was stunned and then I started laughing. because you know, it is hilarious. But what got me angry (not like pissed, just, angry) was that they bitched about a short skirt I own that apparently rides up my thighs. First off, I do sit properly when wearing a skirt. Secondly that skirt goes down to my knees. Thirdly, the only time I sit with my legs open is when I’m facing the wall in my cube. Fourthly, I have not worn that skirt in over four months! Fifthly, I have worn that skirt to work for nearly 2 years.
WHY ARE THEY BRINGING UP THAT SKIRT NOW?
gah. there is a guy here who constantly wears sweat pants and has a major plumbers butt — I mean, it’s down right gross. Apparently they are talking to him too. We shall see, oh yes we will.