This and That
Participated in an Oscars prediction contest with the members of my moms' list. I never watch the Oscars but I watched this year for Jon Stewart. I tied for first place in our group with 17 correct picks. I'd actually seen Curse of the Were-Rabbit, Walk the Line, and King Kong. Oh, and Narnia which was only up for best make-up. I saw the last 40 minutes or so of Good Night and Good Luck on the train. Picked Tsotsi based on having seen a preview. About fell out of my chair laughing at the ridiculous "Good luck enjoying Star Wars on DVD: epics need the majesty of the 'big screen'. No really, please, please, please come to the theater!" pleas written into the script. That desperate are we? Wow.
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I'm skipping GTS again this year. During the school year it's just too hard to figure out what to do about Kate if both Chris and I go to one of these things. We had agreed to go to Vegas again for a different reason and spend personal time with friends. Bought tickets for that soiree but found out this weekend that no one else is actually going to be there after all, the party's been canceled. I'm not sure what to do. The tickets are non-refundable, natch, and for an airline we don't fly for any of our other usual travel. I can cancel the trip and keep credit with the airline, but they'll charge us $130 each for "reissuing" the tickets, and the tickets can only be used by the original travelers (no buying a ticket for Kate to go visit Grandma with the credit). Or, I can go to Vegas with Chris (who will have just been there the week before) and do... something... alone. Bleh.
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Someone else in my friends list was complaining about people being unable to understand clear instructions. Boy, I hear that! Sometimes I feel like there's got to be a secret code that I'm missing the decoder ring for because I'm sure I'm looking at clear instruction in English and yet people respond like I've just communicated in Moon Language. My request "Please send PRODUCT XX (ISBN: #### Product Code: ABC123) to [LOCATION]" generates a response of "please advise exactly what item you are referring to." Uhhh... Hello? Oh yeah, I know that farce all too well.
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I also have a little pent up rant for people who take all the advantage for themselves in a situation and then are surprised when the person on the side who gets kicked in the teeth a couple of times decides they're not going to keep giving that 110% of effort or agree to things that will inevitably result in getting kicked in the teeth again. When I worked for someone else and had to punch a time clock, I could not punch in more than 8 minutes early, lest the company be required to pay for an additional 15 minutes. They didn't want anyone accidentally getting overtime and were constantly on alert in case anyone who worked through their lunch hour or came in early to keep on top of their work might cost the company. If I punched in between 7 and 1 minute early, I was not paid for those minutes, I was merely considered to be "on time." Same for staying late, you could punch out up to 10 minutes late, but don't expect to be paid extra for working late. However, if I punched in 1 minute late, I was docked a full 15 minutes of pay. Wouldn't you know it, that niggling, penny-pinching, "all good for the employer" attitude resulted in people who did not want to come in to work even one minute early, because why should they volunteer to work an additional half an hour a week for a company that would be so petty and always count the minutes in their favor. Oh, did you work a double shift yesterday to benefit the company? Nice dedication, but don't be a minute late to work the day following, or you're docked for that 15 minutes! Great job on pulling off that lutefisk banquet on top of your regular duties, but you took a 20 minute break instead of the 15 minutes we're required by law to provide...you've been docked 15 minutes pay. They didn't much like it when they stopped benefiting from the additional time their workers were putting in for free, either, as they had come to feel that they were owed a certain level of performance. It's such a short-sighted management strategy, resulting in poor morale and high turnover. I just don't understand why anyone would want to have that kind of relationship with the people who work for them.
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Now that I've got my stamina back (the time clock rant was a little test run) I'll probably turn my attention back to the political climate and the spate of nutjobs who want to ban both abortion *and* birth control, who want to set up state endorsed religion, who want to retroactively rewrite laws so their political opponents can be charged with "crimes" they didn't commit or so their political allies won't be on the hook for crimes they did commit, and other such nonsense. Woohoo, I have the fire back, baby. Look out!
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I'm skipping GTS again this year. During the school year it's just too hard to figure out what to do about Kate if both Chris and I go to one of these things. We had agreed to go to Vegas again for a different reason and spend personal time with friends. Bought tickets for that soiree but found out this weekend that no one else is actually going to be there after all, the party's been canceled. I'm not sure what to do. The tickets are non-refundable, natch, and for an airline we don't fly for any of our other usual travel. I can cancel the trip and keep credit with the airline, but they'll charge us $130 each for "reissuing" the tickets, and the tickets can only be used by the original travelers (no buying a ticket for Kate to go visit Grandma with the credit). Or, I can go to Vegas with Chris (who will have just been there the week before) and do... something... alone. Bleh.
****
Someone else in my friends list was complaining about people being unable to understand clear instructions. Boy, I hear that! Sometimes I feel like there's got to be a secret code that I'm missing the decoder ring for because I'm sure I'm looking at clear instruction in English and yet people respond like I've just communicated in Moon Language. My request "Please send PRODUCT XX (ISBN: #### Product Code: ABC123) to [LOCATION]" generates a response of "please advise exactly what item you are referring to." Uhhh... Hello? Oh yeah, I know that farce all too well.
****
I also have a little pent up rant for people who take all the advantage for themselves in a situation and then are surprised when the person on the side who gets kicked in the teeth a couple of times decides they're not going to keep giving that 110% of effort or agree to things that will inevitably result in getting kicked in the teeth again. When I worked for someone else and had to punch a time clock, I could not punch in more than 8 minutes early, lest the company be required to pay for an additional 15 minutes. They didn't want anyone accidentally getting overtime and were constantly on alert in case anyone who worked through their lunch hour or came in early to keep on top of their work might cost the company. If I punched in between 7 and 1 minute early, I was not paid for those minutes, I was merely considered to be "on time." Same for staying late, you could punch out up to 10 minutes late, but don't expect to be paid extra for working late. However, if I punched in 1 minute late, I was docked a full 15 minutes of pay. Wouldn't you know it, that niggling, penny-pinching, "all good for the employer" attitude resulted in people who did not want to come in to work even one minute early, because why should they volunteer to work an additional half an hour a week for a company that would be so petty and always count the minutes in their favor. Oh, did you work a double shift yesterday to benefit the company? Nice dedication, but don't be a minute late to work the day following, or you're docked for that 15 minutes! Great job on pulling off that lutefisk banquet on top of your regular duties, but you took a 20 minute break instead of the 15 minutes we're required by law to provide...you've been docked 15 minutes pay. They didn't much like it when they stopped benefiting from the additional time their workers were putting in for free, either, as they had come to feel that they were owed a certain level of performance. It's such a short-sighted management strategy, resulting in poor morale and high turnover. I just don't understand why anyone would want to have that kind of relationship with the people who work for them.
****
Now that I've got my stamina back (the time clock rant was a little test run) I'll probably turn my attention back to the political climate and the spate of nutjobs who want to ban both abortion *and* birth control, who want to set up state endorsed religion, who want to retroactively rewrite laws so their political opponents can be charged with "crimes" they didn't commit or so their political allies won't be on the hook for crimes they did commit, and other such nonsense. Woohoo, I have the fire back, baby. Look out!
Well, if you end up going to GTS, I'll be doing...something...alone as well. heh Kev will be in seminars till about 5pm every day, and I doubt I'll go to many of them. I can only hang around the booth and bother GR for so long. I'm sure they'll be busy.
It doesn't look like it's going to be warm enough this time to sit poolside. Last time we went in March it was about 80 degrees and beautiful. boooo.
And we don't have a lot of money to spend, so gambling and high-priced shows are out. I'll probably hit all the art galleries I can during the day and just walk around.
Your time clock story is very similar to what I've been going through with the psycho-boss since last November when they started some new procedures for calculating leave at my psycho-job.
Spike