It's almost the end of the day and I don't feel like working anymore, so I figure I'll get all caught up with my blogging. I feel like I've been quite active and busy lately, and yet I can barely remember a lot of what I've done. I know I've been alot of time with my Friends with Babies lately. I got to hang with Heide at the Hostages show a couple of weeks ago which was cool. Last weekend, I went to a barbecue at D's where I got to oogle Baby D who is growing super-fast and already teething. Yikes! It was good to see him because I rarely ever do socially anymore. I had been seeing a lot of him because I was back and forth to the Mall with iPod issues and buying new phones. (Did I tell you I got an iPhone...'cause I did.) Anyway, there were babies, an cute teenagers forcing us to play kickball, and bbq. Yay!
I got to oogle even more babies yesterday as Jim and Sharriah had a bbq to introduce little Cooper to everyone. He is so tiny and adorable all curled up and wrinkly. Aww! Also there were Meghan, Hultman, and Azalea; Matt, Megan, Will, and Jack; and Andy, Nicole, and my new best friend Lila and her kickass pigtails and pink glasses. Babies! Yay!!!!
In other news, um, like, Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett both died on the same day and the world turned upside freakin' down. I'm still stunned by the death of Jacko. Needless to say, I have been a fan since I was a weeeeeee tyke. It was quite the blow to get that news from a tweet while on the bus home. The blow was not healed by some of the assiness that came out of people upon his death. Yeah, yeah. Skin bleaching, chimp-carrying, peodophile freak, right? Not when I was 12 he wasn't and that's the Michael Jackson that I loved and whose death I mourn. Also, he was acquitted which people seem to forget. What's the point of having a legal system wherein people are said to be innocent until proven guilty in a court of law if upon a verdict of not guilty people will continue to assume one's guilt? Then again, I'm still bitter about that shit that went down in Simi Valley, so who am I to judge?
So that's been rough. I think I'm about Michael Jackson-ed out, not that it means anything because all the legal battles and shit that are about to go down are gonna keep this story in the news probably for months to come. I'll just try to ignore it all and listen to Thriller when the mood to remember Michael strikes.
I swear I've done other stuff. A few weeks ago I got it in my head to watch just about all of my John Carpenter movie collection with commentary again. It wasn't intentional. I just felt like listening to the Halloween commentary one day and then I felt like listening to The Fog and then The Thing and then Christine and it just went on. Meanwhile, I've been doing some major slackin' on my Netflix. I've had this one movie, The Cottage for almost 2 weeks and that ain't right. I'm gonna try to watch that tomorrow and get it in the mail on Wednesday so that I can hopefully get a new movie by Friday for our long 4th of July weekend.
For which I have no big plans. I was invited to a bbq at the Trickers which would be lovely because more babies. There is also that convention thing that OtherScott does every year for geeks like me who love horror & sci-fi movies (okay, I'm not as much a fan of the latter unless it's sci-fi horror). Mostly, I hope to get more laundry done and that it won't be so godawful hot.
That's it. You're caught up. I'm sure I'm forgetting something, but I can't think straight at this very moment as I feel like a ate a whole Thanksgiving dinner by myself. Sooooo sleepy all of a sudden. Ah, but only 10 minutes left here. Sweet.
Monday, June 29, 2009
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Regime Change
Things have been a wee bit tense over here at the DMV of late. Some time ago there was a shifting of supervisors to go along with our new carpet and (old) new cubes. This change involves a lot of piddly-ass shit that no one really gives a damn about, but the People Upstairs make a big ole stink about it anyway.
For example, someone decided that it isn't right for employees working the front counter to have beverages out front since we tell customers they aren't allowed beverages. You'll forgive me if I find that completely retarded. Some asshat who will be here for 15 minutes versus someone stuck out there TALKING to people for 7 1/2 hours? Not the same.
Then yesterday we get an email informing us that we aren't allowed to be in our cube spaces more than 15 minutes before our scheduled start time. Because heavenforfend a person should be approached and have to answer a work-related question then demand to be paid overtime for that.
But what really burns my hide is that so much attention is being focused on silly shit like who's in their cube too early or who's wearing denim, is that information that actually affects our job and our contact with customers isn't passed on. As many of you probably know, all sorts of shenanigans are going down with Denny Hecker and KARE-11 did a story about it and said "[DMV]" about 30 times during it. Do you think we were warned ahead of time about this news report and that we would be swamped with calls? Heck no!
Last week, the Strib ran a story about a diversion program for drivers with high fines and too many driving afters on their records. I saw it in the paper, but totally forgot about it...until I got a call from a customer inquiring about it yesterday. I kindly forwarded the Strib story to my coworkers since they likely weren't gonna get the information any other way.
I get that they want to improve the image of the DMV, but what they fail to understand is that customer interactions can turn from good to bad based on how much information we provide them and how quickly and accurately we provide it. Someone might not be impressed by my denim skirt, but they're less likely to care if I can get them in and out of here with the information they need with very little hassle.
Meanwhile, things that actually might improve our image just linger. Like our crappy phone system which sends people through a thousand loops and asks them for information that they will have to repeat once they finally get a human on the line. Or documents that fail to explain requirements properly. Or useless statutes designed to scare people even though they aren't enforced.
My mom always told me my mouth would get me in trouble and it has on an occasion, but that's because I'm just not a fan of suck it up and taking it from people, especially when I find something stupid. So my supervisor has heard a lot from me about the bullshit that's been going down. Luckily, she likes me (and largely agrees with my--our--complaints), but I should maybe try to hold my tongue. You never know when budget cuts might warrant laying off a few workers.
For example, someone decided that it isn't right for employees working the front counter to have beverages out front since we tell customers they aren't allowed beverages. You'll forgive me if I find that completely retarded. Some asshat who will be here for 15 minutes versus someone stuck out there TALKING to people for 7 1/2 hours? Not the same.
Then yesterday we get an email informing us that we aren't allowed to be in our cube spaces more than 15 minutes before our scheduled start time. Because heavenforfend a person should be approached and have to answer a work-related question then demand to be paid overtime for that.
But what really burns my hide is that so much attention is being focused on silly shit like who's in their cube too early or who's wearing denim, is that information that actually affects our job and our contact with customers isn't passed on. As many of you probably know, all sorts of shenanigans are going down with Denny Hecker and KARE-11 did a story about it and said "[DMV]" about 30 times during it. Do you think we were warned ahead of time about this news report and that we would be swamped with calls? Heck no!
Last week, the Strib ran a story about a diversion program for drivers with high fines and too many driving afters on their records. I saw it in the paper, but totally forgot about it...until I got a call from a customer inquiring about it yesterday. I kindly forwarded the Strib story to my coworkers since they likely weren't gonna get the information any other way.
I get that they want to improve the image of the DMV, but what they fail to understand is that customer interactions can turn from good to bad based on how much information we provide them and how quickly and accurately we provide it. Someone might not be impressed by my denim skirt, but they're less likely to care if I can get them in and out of here with the information they need with very little hassle.
Meanwhile, things that actually might improve our image just linger. Like our crappy phone system which sends people through a thousand loops and asks them for information that they will have to repeat once they finally get a human on the line. Or documents that fail to explain requirements properly. Or useless statutes designed to scare people even though they aren't enforced.
My mom always told me my mouth would get me in trouble and it has on an occasion, but that's because I'm just not a fan of suck it up and taking it from people, especially when I find something stupid. So my supervisor has heard a lot from me about the bullshit that's been going down. Luckily, she likes me (and largely agrees with my--our--complaints), but I should maybe try to hold my tongue. You never know when budget cuts might warrant laying off a few workers.
Wednesday, June 03, 2009
Drag Me to Hell
You know, with all my bitching about the audience at the movie on Saturday, I never really said anything about how I felt about the movie.
In retrospect, I am not so sure I liked it. Time for yet another horror fan confession: I'm not a huge Sam Raimi horror fan. I thought Evil Dead was cool and Evil Dead II is a-ight, and I'm glad to have the Boomstick edition of Army of Darkness, but those movies don't get regular replay for me. I'm more likely to watch all of them with the commentary track on than without and that's mostly to hear the lovely voice of Bruce Campbell. His dramatic stuff (A Simple Plan; The Gift) is more to my liking. I think I've said before I don't like a whole lot of comedy in my horror. I can appreciate a degree of goofiness, but once you hit Looney Tunes levels I'm annoyed. And gross-out gags get really boring really quick.
DMtH has A LOT of Looney Tunes/gross-out horror. There are about 5 or more scenes with stuff going into our heroine's (?) mouth. Plus there are loogies (sp.) and maggots and skanky false teeth and a geyser nosebleed. I did jump once or twice and a particular fight scene was fun to watch, but overall it just kind of really didn't do much for me. Maybe when it comes out on DVD, I will see it again to determine just how much that shitty audience affected my viewing pleasure.
I tell what is good though. NOTLP did an episode on Session 9 a few weeks ago, so I rewatched that last night. Man, that movie is so goddamn creepy. That's my kind of horror. I'd rather have a (fairly) bloodless atmospheric movie than some grossfest with a lame story. And by the way, every thing about Justin Long oozed 'douchebag'. As if those smug Mac vs. PC commercials didn't make me hate him enough, he just bugs me. Plus I recall that he was in Jeepers Creepers and I hated that movie. Also. the Mac product placements were really fucking irritating. Stuff your little Apple up your ass.
So, if I were to rate DMtH right now after seeing it this weekend, I'd give it maybe a two (out of five). However, it might actually be a 3, but my theatre-mates just sucked so much of the fun from the whole experience. And it can't be blamed on it being PG-13 because there were plenty of stupid grown-folks in my screening. (Also PG-13 does not mean 'bring your 6-year-old).
I really need to win the Powerball so I can build a house in the middle of a field with no surrround neighbors and a private theatre in the basement (like you used to see on Cribs). I just really don't like other human beings.
In retrospect, I am not so sure I liked it. Time for yet another horror fan confession: I'm not a huge Sam Raimi horror fan. I thought Evil Dead was cool and Evil Dead II is a-ight, and I'm glad to have the Boomstick edition of Army of Darkness, but those movies don't get regular replay for me. I'm more likely to watch all of them with the commentary track on than without and that's mostly to hear the lovely voice of Bruce Campbell. His dramatic stuff (A Simple Plan; The Gift) is more to my liking. I think I've said before I don't like a whole lot of comedy in my horror. I can appreciate a degree of goofiness, but once you hit Looney Tunes levels I'm annoyed. And gross-out gags get really boring really quick.
DMtH has A LOT of Looney Tunes/gross-out horror. There are about 5 or more scenes with stuff going into our heroine's (?) mouth. Plus there are loogies (sp.) and maggots and skanky false teeth and a geyser nosebleed. I did jump once or twice and a particular fight scene was fun to watch, but overall it just kind of really didn't do much for me. Maybe when it comes out on DVD, I will see it again to determine just how much that shitty audience affected my viewing pleasure.
I tell what is good though. NOTLP did an episode on Session 9 a few weeks ago, so I rewatched that last night. Man, that movie is so goddamn creepy. That's my kind of horror. I'd rather have a (fairly) bloodless atmospheric movie than some grossfest with a lame story. And by the way, every thing about Justin Long oozed 'douchebag'. As if those smug Mac vs. PC commercials didn't make me hate him enough, he just bugs me. Plus I recall that he was in Jeepers Creepers and I hated that movie. Also. the Mac product placements were really fucking irritating. Stuff your little Apple up your ass.
So, if I were to rate DMtH right now after seeing it this weekend, I'd give it maybe a two (out of five). However, it might actually be a 3, but my theatre-mates just sucked so much of the fun from the whole experience. And it can't be blamed on it being PG-13 because there were plenty of stupid grown-folks in my screening. (Also PG-13 does not mean 'bring your 6-year-old).
I really need to win the Powerball so I can build a house in the middle of a field with no surrround neighbors and a private theatre in the basement (like you used to see on Cribs). I just really don't like other human beings.
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