Enjablog

I sent an email out earlier this week with instructions on how to add a coworker’s shared email folder in outlook:

[Instructions: Click here. Now click there.]

…

Let me know if these instructions need clarification. Otherwise, any other problems should go through ITGuy.

Resumeliar stops by a few hours later, “You know that email you sent out?”

Yes, the one email. This sounds promising.

“Yes.”

“Did you get that to work?”

“Yes.”

“VTguy and I couldn’t get it to work.”

“Did you follow the instructions?”

“Yeah, it added the mailbox, but we can’t see the folder.”

“Did you email IT?

“No… should I?”

“Yes.”

Two days later…

VTguy calls, “Did you get this Outlook thing to work?”

“Yes.”

“I can’t get it to work.”

“Did you talk to IT?”

“No. I guess I could do that. ResumeLiar is having trouble too.”

“I told ResumeLiar to go talk to IT when he asked me 2 days ago. Did he ask?”

VTGuy had me on speakerphone, so his officemate, ResumeLiar, heard the question, “Oh, I didn’t do that.”

“Talk to IT” *click*

Last night’s debate, in my opinion, had an obvious winner: CNN.

Their technology is far superior to what the other networks demonstrated. Their HD broadcast had 6 analysts who were scoring the debate real-time, as well as independents in Ohio with dials who could react throughout the debate.

I love watching independents react. Last week’s debate, they reacted positively every time someone spoke. Last night, they were divided on the graph as men and women. At one point, the men went back in time and reacted very negatively. The women reacted positively as stereotypically expected — personal stories, things that would cause empathy or other strong emotions, etc.

And then the analysts! Last week, Begala was asleep for the first half hour, but totally came back and had a score close to the rest of the analysts.

Rosen and Rollins were the token extremists. Their scoring was clearly partisan, sometimes giving their candidate more points than the other analysts combined. Last night, Rosen was keeping up and was pretty even with Rollins… until about 10 o’clock. At which point, Rollins fell asleep on the plus button for Palin and gave her 10 points all at once, even though she had stopped talking. This was obviously a mistake, because soon after that, he reduced that to only a 9-point increase.

By the end of the night, Rollins definitely had the win for the most total points on his scorecard, awarding Palin 4 times as many points as other analysts and twice what he awarded Biden.

QOTD: “Did Rollins just have a thumbgasm?”

I love the look on Katie’s face 35 seconds into this clip. That’s the look I offer my coworkers way more than I mean to.

I’m not quite sure how to address this without sounding ungrateful and greedy. And maybe it’s because I am being ungrateful and greedy. But.

I requested a mid-year review with Boss to see about getting a raise after earning my PE, working absurdly long hours because no one else was able to do this specific work, and basically having my job responsibilities change without being told.

It was a lengthy, awkward meeting. There was an airing of grievances — I don’t work enough hours; I didn’t catch a mistake that one of my coworkers made which never came to me for review. And it became clear to me that Boss didn’t actually know about 25% of the things I do (including automating 3 of my coworkers’ duties so they could be freed to do other work. What? Did he think they got really efficient all of a sudden? And didn’t he tell me to work with them..?).

So in the end, he said that he would go to upper management for me and recommend that I get a raise.

Now, I know the economy is bad. And I know I didn’t go to them with a specific numerical demand or offer in hand.

But I’m incredibly disappointed by the raise that I received and, honestly, a little insulted by it. I’m pretty sure my facial expression revealed my opinion of it because Boss did ask me if that was ok. And I hesitated, being unprepared to hear right then, and even more unprepared for something that wasn’t even on the radar in my expectation range.

This is the lowest raise I’ve received in 4 years.

I sound greedy now, don’t I?

I discussed with Boss at my review at the beginning of this year whether mid-year reviews/raises are an option. Specifically, with regard to getting my PE and Masters. He said yes. It’s not typical, but in exceptional cases like that, I should be compensated for my increased value to the company.

I don’t feel like they are compensating me a proportional amount to the increase in my value to them.

Now, I’m trying to see how, monetarily this is actually better than waiting until next spring and getting a larger raise. Because if I didn’t ask for anything now, it seems like my advances should make it worth more than a typical raise then. And this was, at best, typical.

And now my annual review cycle has been moved to this new date and I am not to expect a raise in the spring. This doesn’t add up for me.

I should also mention that when I walked into that meeting, his first issue was that I not have an expectation of doing this often. He doesn’t want me coming in every 6 months asking for another raise.

Trust me. I won’t.

LOTD: How much are you worth?

For as long as I can remember, I’ve slept with a comforter at night. Always.

Even in the summer, I get very cold at night, so I have to have some kind of insulation in order to regulate my body temperature.

I was told that this isn’t normal. So, I decided to do some research to see if I had some kind of disorder… (Can you tell I have been procrastinating recently?)

As it turns out, I’m narcoleptic. Yeah, no kidding, right? We already knew that.

But this is a relatively recent finding that demonstrates a relationship between skin temperature and sleepiness: Altered skin-temperature regulation in narcolepsy relates to sleep propensity.

There is an inverse relationship with core body temperature and the temperature of extremities. When your core temperature drops, the heat is dispersed through your skin, causing your extremities to get warmer. Narcoleptics have more extreme variations and slower changes in temperature, which is why I get so cold (core temperature) while radiating so much heat (distal temp) when I sleep and have so much trouble waking up.

… narcoleptics were reported to show an attenuated circadian amplitude and slower morning rise of the core body temperature, as well as an earlier temperature minimum, which both fit the present finding of a continuation into sleep of the increased distal skin blood flow and consequently heat loss.

As a follow-up to this study, there have been experiments with thermosuits and hot/cold foods and drinks to see the effect on excessive daytime sleepiness. Clearly, the solution is here: Electric Coat.

Which, of course, reminds me of Squidgey’s recommendation to me a few years back: The No-Contact Jacket.

A few people have asked me about this quote since Friday night’s debate, so I thought I’d post it up.

“We tried to build a little ship called the Littoral Combat Ship that was supposed to cost $140 million, ended up costing $400 million, and we still haven’t done it.”

Got that out of a transcript. I didn’t catch the whole quote at the time because I was surprised by the number he cited. But, uhm, I thought we kind of did build that little ship.

I came across an article on the Psychology of voting that cited a study that was done a few years ago:
“Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One’s Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments.” (PDF of original paper)

I think I’ve seen references to this in passing before, but I decided to look it up today and read the actual paper. It was marginally reassuring to me that the concluding remarks in their paper expressed similar apprehensions as I experienced when reading their results:

In sum, we present this article as an exploration into why people tend to hold overly optimistic and miscalibrated views about themselves. We propose that those with limited knowledge in a domain suffer a dual burden: Not only do they reach mistaken conclusions and make regrettable errors, but their incompetence robs them of the ability to realize it. Although we feel we have done a competent job in making a strong case for this analysis, studying it empirically, and drawing out relevant implications, our thesis leaves us with one haunting worry that we cannot vanquish. That worry is that this article may contain faulty logic, methodological errors, or poor communication. Let us assure our readers that to the extent this article is imperfect, it is not a sin we have committed knowingly.

This also brings to mind the confidence that many people have in job hiring processes and their personal judgment when it comes to interviews. I have witnessed the failures in this process enough times to recognize that I certainly don’t trust my own judgment, much less that of others. While I recognize that it is a necessary part of the process to meet and interact with a potential hire in order to finalize the decision, I find it rare that interviewers put in the effort to learn anything new about a candidate aside from what they might have learned from a sheet of paper or a brief phone or email interview. And yet, most interviewers believe that they are a good judge of character and that meeting this person will make all the difference.

Right.

Try telling them otherwise.

But really… After an interview, ask yourself:
- What have you learned about this person that you didn’t already know before?
- How does this person stand out from the average population?
- Do you ask standard questions when you interview? What information are you gaining by asking these aside from what the person explicitly wants you to believe?
- Do you have a better idea of how this person thinks, works, etc?
- How does this person’s opinion of him/herself compare to their actual abilities?
- Do you ask for references? Do you contact those references?

I was discussing in passing with Ian the other day how people should have references from ex-bf/gfs when starting new relationships. But isn’t it the responsibility of the person doing the hiring to ask for those references? So, if you’re dating someone and don’t know their friends, history, etc. it’s your responsibility to do your research. It many cases, it’s not in a person’s interest to offer that information up front. So why wouldn’t you ask?

Oh, what a fool I was to think a 10-hour day at the office was long. I discovered yesterday that there are people at the office at 6:30 am. Are these people crazy??

It’s one thing when I’m in Wisconsin and there’s nothing else to do… Or when I was out on trials and had no choice but to work 14-hour days (two 21-hour days!) because, well, I couldn’t get back to land. I signed up for a cushy desk job. I should have no expectation of putting in 2-6 hours of overtime every day.

I got roped into this meeting yesterday and I just wanted to tell them they were acting like children. Eighteen people there to make sure no one took away their toys. They can’t *all* get their way. And if they don’t start working together, no one is going to get to play. That’s just how it works!

P.S. I did not write the letter from the Republic of America. Just thought it was funny. :)

So… after clocking 10 hours at work today, I had a group meeting for class. And now I have about an hour of homework to finish up and review other people’s slides, along with emails tasking me with about another 4 hours of work that I’m expected to get done by tomorrow morning.

Seriously? When did I become an adult? I’m still surprised by this. Still.

Things still on to do list:
- finish laundry
- empty dishwasher (I have discovered that the “clean dishes” light turns off after a month. Yes, I’m that bad.)
- finish homework
- email group
- schedule time to work on my part of design to send to classmate
- get enough work done so I don’t go crazy tomorrow morning
- pick up prescription that I called to refill 3 days ago
- go to sleep
- stop blogging.

Dear Enjanerd:

I need to ask you to support an urgent secret business relationship with a transfer of funds of great magnitude.

I am Ministry of the Treasury of the Republic of America. My country has had crisis that has caused the need for large transfer of funds of 800 billion dollars US. If you would assist me in this transfer, it would be most profitable to you.

I am working with Mr. Phil Gram, lobbyist for UBS, who will be my replacement as Ministry of the Treasury in January. As a Senator, you may know him as the leader of the American banking deregulation movement in the 1990s. This transaction is 100% safe.

This is a matter of great urgency. We need a blank check. We need the funds as quickly as possible. We cannot directly transfer these funds in the names of our close friends because we are constantly under surveillance. My family lawyer advised me that I should look for a reliable and trustworthy person who will act as a next of kin so the funds can be transferred.

Please reply with all of your bank account, IRA and college fund account numbers and those of your children and grandchildren to wallstreetbailout@treasury.gov so that we may transfer your commission for this transaction. After I receive that information, I will respond with detailed information about safeguards that will be used to protect the funds.

Yours Faithfully,
Minister of Treasury Paulson

So, a few weeks ago when I was in Wisconsin, some dude at the company partnered with us decided to file a complaint about my “attitude problem.” This was interesting because I didn’t particularly know who he was. But I guess that doesn’t negate the possibility that I was assertive while dealing with people who wouldn’t listen to me.

In any case, their company’s program manager asked him if I was getting my job done. He said yes, so that was the end of the matter.

Until the results of our weight survey came in… and I noticed that there was something strange going on. It looked like there was a module hidden on board that was the culprit for some added weight.

That evening, I received a visit from the program manager and his thugs. (What is this, some kind of HBO show?) Suspecting that the discrepancy would be discovered, (how could it not..?) he thought it would be easier to bully me into keeping quiet than anyone else who would’ve been my replacement.

Um, dude… That guy told you I have an attitude problem. What makes you think I’ll be a pushover?

Apparently, he wasn’t very smart.

In any case, he left me with his thugs to “teach me a lesson.” Fortunately for me, they had a problem hitting a girl. Unfortunately for me, they didn’t have a problem harassing me. They were unprepared for me to not care about their advances though. While they were confused about what to do next, I walked out the door. Conveniently, there was a bike right outside, so I hopped on that and started heading for the airport. That was obviously the logical thing to do… what with it being 50 miles away. Sigh.

Soon enough, a van caught up to me with an angry program manager and some thugs inside. They were trying to run me off an on-ramp when it started raining. Somehow, they got confused by the rain and I was able to get away… and wake up from my nap in time to get to my Sunday afternoon meeting.

Ian and I went over to the grand opening of the Obama office in Fairfax a few weeks ago:

Ian got me a shiny new camera for my birthday. My old one still works and I only dropped it once… but it was bulky, had a short battery life (4 pictures!), and was slow getting started… and shutting down.

This one has been so good so far. I’ve taken 90+ pictures and 3 videos over a minute long each, reviewed the pictures on the camera, and even spent a significant amount of time playing around with settings and learning where things are in the menus. And 2 months later, the battery still reads fully charged. The memory card still has plenty of space too. So cool. :)

Aarrrrgghh-2-d-2

Avast! ‘Tis Talk Like a Pirate Day!

Yeah, uh. It’s an entertaining holiday and all, but that’s about all I got. Hope everyone has a fun time today! :)

Why do pirates like communists?
Because of the U.S.S.AARRRRRRRRR!

Why did the pirate ship look so good?
They used varrrrrrrnish!

What did the Pirate who injured his knee get?
Arrrrrrrrthroscopic surgery!

How do pirate programs get input?
Through ARRRGV and ARRRGC!

What did Black Beard say to his men before they got on the ship?
Let’s get on the ship, men!

More Pirate Jokes… Come on. You know you’re going to click it. You need to have some good pirate jokes on hand, especially if you go out tonight.