Random School/Work-Venting Post

Remove all ads!

So, at work they finally cranked down on outr taxis. (We start before publuiic transport does, so under certain circumstances you gt one to work)

the problem? I was getting one until now. And I could actually sleep till 5.30. Now? I have to take the company shuttle bus - which leaves the city center at 05.15. and the nearest stop for me? 20 minute walk away. So now.. guess who has to wake up 4.20 am monday to friday?

 

What the heck do they have against taxis? It's none of their business!

 

Is it just my imagination, or did I just saw an Ara post?

I had found myself a decent job as salesperson in an electronics store. I got fired because I didn't had a valid health insurance card which appearantly is mandatory for the background check they require. WTF? A little forewarning that I'd get a backcheck would be nice, would have given me the time to order the damn card...

 

Yes, the company supplies the taxis and a shuttle bus for those people who have an early start. in this case, early = before 7 am. (I start at 6...) But the rules include no taxi if you live within 1.5 km form the shuttle bus route. I was at 1.4 so I coudl wiggle untilt hey seriously clamped down. I man, I do understand - the boss was spending 2.5K eur a week on the taxis and he wants to use some of that money for training, etc.

So now I am tempted to ask if I an use the saved money to become a Minesweepr Certified Solitaire Expert

 

Worst. Day. Ever.

 

Well...I mananged to make it back here!!

The main reason I've been gone so long is, of course - otherwise I wouldn't be in this particular thread, frickin work...it seems the Club is in financial difficulty so they've been cutting back on shifts for the couple of Casuals we do have and guess who's borne the brunt of the vacated shifts? Yup...me...it wouldn't bother me too much cos of the extra cash but it leaves no time for anything much besides sleep. And to make it worse I now have to start looking for a new home. Work owns my house and they've decided to sell it to try to alleviate some of the financial strain. Funnily enough, I was told that if the place doesn't sell within the 60 days they gave me to vacate they might look at me staying here, but how on earth is that supposed to work when I'm supposed to have found a new home by then? If I put a deposit down on a new place and they decide I can stay here I lose my frickin deposit...oh well, I might just have to make myself a little less available to fill in when someone calls in sick or doesn't show up...

 

You could always buy the house with a settled price since you're working at the place...How'd a little mortgage sound?

 

I'd love to buy it...but the price they're asking is waay too steep. Not just for my budget but for the place itself actually...

 

Well...it's official, I'm failing calculus. It's just too damn hard after not having a math class for over a year. This will be the first class that I actually have to pay for since I won't be getting a "C" or better. $1700 down the drain for one lousy class. The prep math class that I was supposed to take before calculus won't be offered until the September quarter either, so this next quarter should be fairly easy...I hope.

 

I'm stuck home on Sunday writing and working

On the bright side the weather's still awful, so there's not much incentive to go out and do anything.

My boss is a strange woman. Though I'm more and more convinced that every single person who goes into research is crazy. So we're trying to get the last two years' work into a paper, and she says we will "write the paper together". Apparently "writing together" means I get to assemble and analyse all the data, put all the figure and tables together, write the whole damn thing, insert all the references, and she gets to sit back and tell me how to do it. Now I don't mind doing everything myself, but in this case I want to write the paper my way. If she's not happy with what I've done then she can fix it herself.

 

Another monday at work. Bah. I swear to god if i have to deal with one more idiot who can't remember a password over a weekend, or worse, over a coffee break... there's gonna be murder. Of Epic Proportions. Now where is that TOB disc....

 

The faculty has an internet centre. Great.
It works from 9 - 17h. Ok.
All computers have Firefox, as default browsers.

Today, the centre got opened at ten, and the only site you could go to was the faculty one. In short, no net.

Looks like the moderators here forgot the alternative IE install though, so here I am, after fifteen minutes of trying.
I didn't think I would click on an IE icon in my life.

What kind of internet centre doesn't let you access the internet?

 

Ick. My condolences.

MY work involves WAY TOO MANY stupid people and I can;t take th egetting yelled at thing any longer - my closest boss yells at me daily, pretty much. thankfully she quits in 2 weeks. Problem>? the guiy who is going to replace him is NOT any nicer. *shudder*

Then again.. I was told by Bossman that he will find out how to get me into the MCSE program we have running here, and in about 2 months or so nmy jobh spec is going to change DRASTICALLY. In a good way. *grin*

 

Assignment due 5pm, essay (1,500) due next Wednesday. I'm going to be camping in the library over the weekend again. Third weekend doing this!

 

In my current assignment at work, I have to deal with what one person at our company (probably after long deliberation and for hopefully a sound reason) called 'complex tables'.

Considering the effect it had, they could have as well called it 'unsolvable task'.

We're using the CALS table model in XML, and we're working on publishing a collection of laws that contains a lot of tables.

Well, complex tables are tables where entries span rows or columns, so that their position in CALS is not clear to a file reader. So we have to enter cell id's and add the 'coordinates' (think of playing 'salvo' or 'battleships'). Now this isn't difficult at all, just a lot of work, and it isn't particularly complex either (so I think the title is indicative about the knowledge of the name giver on tables, but I digress). To add to the confusion and to underline the perceived complexity they then went forth to distinguish them into classes based on layout (Ia, Ib, IIa, IIb, IIc, III etc.) all of which only look slightly different, but have no consequence for what we have to do at all.

What's the sole point of this rant, after the long introduction, is that the students who have to tag those tables accordingly are near shell-shocked. It's as if the ominous name 'complex tables' alone puts them into stupor. Everything that has more than two rows is regarded as complex, and presumably very very difficult. It isn't!

Had they only named it 'spanned tables' everybody would have had a visual idea. It probably would have avoided the irrational fear of the unknown complexities lurking under the surface of (only) innocent looking tables.

Language matters. It can easily make problems appear much worse as they actually are and deter people from addressing them, or even trying to understand them.

 

I shoulda seen this one coming...one of our staff went ballistic last week at the Duty Manager who was on that night simply because he didn't want to be the one making cocktails, even though it was all his idea in the first place to introduce $4 Cocktails on a Friday night to try getting the crowd in. The worst of it was that the Boss was there having a few drinks so the guy ended up getting sacked...and now that there's one less staff there guess who's been tapped to do the Close most nights now?? I mean, I do love my job still but it ticks me off that they simply assume that I'm going to be able to do all these Closes without asking me...

 

I got a pay raise yesterday

 

Statistical data-analysis is my final course before summer (I failed a test so technically I have one exam on summer which I'm greatly disappointed at, I might postpone it to autnum though) and incidentally it's cracking my skull to pieces. The lectures were absolute waste of time and we have serious lack of self-study material for the exams. Just another example of poorly executed courses. Luckily for me I've got enough points from the first exam so I just have to get 6/19 points from this second one which I should manage.

 

This is a vent post! Begone with your happy news!