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Me:  JetBlue’s running an all-you-can-fly promotion for a month for 600 bucks.  Think anyone’d notice if I disappeared for a month?
Coworker: That’s ridiculous, of course.  Three weeks maybe.
Me: How about this, I’ll leave until someone notices I’m gone, I’ll fly back like nothing ever happened and then you can use the pass.
Coworker: Never… you’d never give me the pass.
Me: What if I throw in a carrot cake?
Coworker: Deal.

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I was confounded by a big problem in building the supercomputer: getting a case.  I need something that’ll accomodate two mobos which requires a very big case.  The only ones I could find were these giant gaudy cases from the 90s with clear sides that’ll make the UV coolant even more obvious.  This is going to go in a lab so I tried to find something as toned down as possible.

Project Coordinator: That’s a pretty boring case.
Me: Isn’t that good it’s going to be in a lab.
Project Coordinator: If we’re going to spend x for a computer, we should get something that looks good.  How about something a little more… imposing.
Me: Imposing?
Project Coordinator: Yes, something with presence.
Me: Presence?
Project Coordinator:  Yeah, find something with a more striking case and maybe a sleek appearance.  Something nice.

Great… I wanted to build a Mercedes C Class he chose an Escalade.  I got the Escalade now he wants phat spinnin’ rims.  Maybe I can talk to the guys in rapid prototyping but I doubt AutoCAD or SolidWorks has a well developed bling plugin or a “pimp my parametrically defined subassembly” option.  One can hope.

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The actual printers in our office don’t work yet but we found a somewhat close but hard to find printer.  My first set of directions weren’t clear enough so I provided the following:

Go up the stairs everyone uses to make phone calls because it’s the only place that gets more than two bars that used to empty into the front door of the giant freezer that had a “NO EXPLOSIVES” next to an “EXPLOSIVE-RESISTANT FREEZER” sign.  Exit the loud door and walk past filing cabinets plastered with art from Publisher 95 corresponding to the last time this “precious data” was used.  Make a left before the soul-sucking morass of cubes and then a prompt right at the giant empty koala head.  Make a prompt right before the line of coffee stains and listen for cursing, crying and grinding to find the printer.

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Today was the day of the great computer migration where we’d switch from Novell to Windows.  The migration was a failurepile inside of a sadnessbowl but the thing that really got me the fact that they took my f*%@ing network cable.  Really?  You had to take my 3′ cable and replace it with a 50′ one?  I could take the slack of my cable, kick out the window and repel to the first f*cking floor with it.  That’s re-effing-diculous.  Then, when I ask, you tell me it’s because of the migration?  I’ve met simpleton mutes who made sense than that.  How did we get the Keystone Cops of tech support to do this?  Then you tell me I can have a static IP but it’ll change periodically?  Then it’s not f*&$ing static is it! Gha….

I’d tell the story of them holding up the migration on a coworker because they didn’t know what network port on the wall he used.  There’s two, one about six inches from his computer and another that’s visible from his desk only via periscoping binoculars. Guess.

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There are a bunch of networked drives to which each CAD person gets selective access.  Today, these permissions were done… apparently.

Tech Guy: Done, sir.  Each of your CAD workers has read/write/modify access to all drives.
Boss:  Whoa… They shouldn’t.  I sent a document outlining each person’s access.
Tech Guy:  *Checks Blackberry, sees missed message* … Well, wouldn’t you want your workers to have total access…
Boss: No.  *Hands tech 2″ binder outlining CAD permission policy*
Tech Guy: But each of these permissions’ll take 15 minutes to do, you sure you don’t want…
Boss: Now.
Tech Guy: You should learn to trust your technicians.

I’m confident that his final statement wouldn’t have made it out had my boss possessed laser vision.

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My office has been migrating from one backend to another as we depart from our previous corporate mothership.  The transition has gone as smooth as the breakup of the British Raj in India and my boss delayed our team’s rollout a week as we’re effectively useless without both a functioning printer and web access.  We expected the tech person to arrive at 9 AM today and he rolled in around 4 PM:

Tech Guy: Sir, I’m here to do your migration.
Boss: Ok, who do you want to start on?
Tech Guy: I was told there was one system.
Boss: There is, one system consisting of 7 users using 13 computers.
Coworker: And three printers!
Coworker 2: And the big scanner!
Coworker: And our phones!

Then, like a recently potty trained child that just pooped themselves, the tech support guy let out an “uh oh” that could have been used in a Pampers commercial.   He kinda shuffled a bit and then left to “get help” which I assume gave him time to change his pants.  He came back empty handed so it looks like our office will have to wait a week to be crippled by his incompetence.

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I returned on Monday  a bit harried after driving 14 hours and I ran into one of my baking fans.

Coworker: Terry, why you in so late?  Where the cake?
Me: Well, I got in from a 14-hour drive from Chicago this morning.  The turnpike was really rough and I just had to sleep.   Also, my oven’s still broke.
Coworker: That terrible.
Me: The drive wasn’t that bad.
Coworker: No, your oven.  How we get cake?  What’s wrong with the oven?
Me: It might be the coil or the whole oven, I haven’t checked yet.
Coworker: Your oven too important to us.  I see if I can start a collection.  If not, I get purchase  order.  This too important to wait on.
Me: Thank you, I guess.
Coworker: No worry, I manager.  It what I do.

Hm… Vital piece of test apparatus breaks and I have to wait 20 days to send it out for repairs.  My personal oven breaks cutting off the confectionary supply lines and the full force of my division is brought to bear.  It’s good that we have priorities.

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Coworker: Where cake?
Me: What do you mean?  I bring in baked goods on Monday.
Coworker: No, you bring on Tuesday sometime, even Wednesday.
Me: I’ve never brought in a baked good on a day besides the first in a work week.
Coworker: You bring in cake on Friday last week.
Me: I wasn’t even in on Friday last week.
Coworker: You always bring in cake each day.  I remember.
Me: Sam, have I ever brought in a cake on Wednesday?
Sam: No.
Me: Ed, have I ever brought in a cake on Wednesday?
Ed: No.
Me: John, have I ever brought in a cake on Wednesday?
John: No.
Me: Tinh, have I ever brought in a cake on Wednesday?
Tinh: Hell, no.
Me: Up until I’m taken on as a full time position where baking is in my job description, I receive a cost center to which I can charge for your Wednesday cake, or you provide for me vacation days such that Wednesday is the first day of the week, you shall never see a Wednesday cake.
Coworker: Ok.  I come back tomorrow.

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One of our coworkers returned from a business trip with a local “treat” of her destination, Cherry Mashes.  We were unsure of what was in them and the individual packages were devoid of an ingredients list so my boss, a former engineer for the flavors division of a food firm tried one:

Me: So what’s in it?
Him: Hm… a complex combination of grade F hazelnuts, chocolate from cocoa that may have been lit on fire and a vat of artificial flavoring that may have had a bowl of cherries next to  it.

The land of Paula Dean has failed us.