Moo! The Musings of a Plaid Cow

From an email at work before the plant shutdown:

Currently, employees receive an award (chosen from the gift catalogue), lapel pin and certificate at each five year anniversary (5, 10, 15, etc.). As a part of the company Functional Excellence Initiative, beginning in 2007, employees will continue to receive a lapel pin and certificate at each five-year anniversary, but awards will be given only to those employee’s celebrating 25 years of service.

Perhaps employees and their satisfaction are not a part of the Functional Excellence? Then again, I think I heard, from people that have been there a while, that Functional Excellence is actually a euphemism for down-sizing.

When I changed jobs a while back I took over the desk of Paul, who is on a two year leave (serving with the National Guard in Iraq). Besides being a really interesting guy that I have never had a chance to meet, he seems to be subscribed to every free magazine known to man, and since I have his same phone number, they all call wanting to renew his subscription.

Most of the conversations have gone something like this:

Me: Hello
Her: Yes, I would like to speak with Mr. Paul
Me: Paul will be out of the office for the next year and a half.
Her: So I can call back after Christmas?
Me: No, he will be out until July 2008.

I’m sure they are well intentioned, but since they keep calling, I’m thinking of more creative ways to tell the ones that just don’t get it. Like, “I’m sorry, Paul is out of the office with a blood infection due to a paper cut he got while reading your magazine.”

Maybe this would get through–though the subtlety may not make it through the language barrier.

Yesterday we got a new addition in our house: Trevor.

We’ve had fun getting to know him and spending two days playing and posing:

Now, we’ve just got one tired puppy:

(Click for larger views of the images.)

I was sent a recurring meeting notice at work yesterday and after adding it to my calendar, I was told by Microsoft Outlook that:

1 instance of this recurring appointment conflicts with another appointment on your calendar.

Thanks, but would you mind telling me when the conflict occurs?

I did eventually find the conflict (after looking through a years worth of appointments). Even though I got the meeting notice yesterday, Outlook was kind enough to add all of the meetings since it was first scheduled back in July. One of the meetings back in November conflicted with this new meeting. Now that is useful information.

Back when I used to have Instant Messaging at work, every Friday I would try to inject a little joy into the lived of my co-workers by sending them a nice instant message to wish them a good weekend. Like these examples:

• Do you know who the winner of the “Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny” is? Find out at http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/285267 and then enjoy the rest of your weekend.

• It appears to be deader than a door nail. So I’m going to spend the week looking for some door nails with signs of life. Hopefully your weekend it better.

• No bones about it. Sharks love Friday’s. Have a good weekend. >-^---:-

• Have a good weekend and don’t forget to stop by Fred’s Fish Packin’ (the “We fill it with filet” store). It’s about a mile down on the right. You can’t miss it.

• reorg…tastes like burning. have a great weekend.

• Have a nice and joyous weekend.

• Have a good weekend and beware the spotted fish.

• Are the weekends in Texas bigger too? I gotta get me some of that.

A fond remembrance to license plates past:

Until working in corporate America, I never realized how many names there are for the “clear things you write on to project onto a screen.” You may know them as a

• acetate
• flimsy
• overhead
• slide
• transparency
• vu-foil
• vu-graph

or some other name that i’ve never even heard of. Crazy.