Tuesday, August 17, 2004

The Challenge is On!

foofaraw \FOO-fuh-raw\, noun:
1. Excessive or flashy ornamentation or decoration.
2. A fuss over a matter of little importance.

As the second definition being the perfect word to describe most of the meetings I go to, I sent it to a co-worker and we are now in a contest to see who can use the word first in a meeting. He’s going down… foofaraw!

Thursday, August 12, 2004

How to Lose Control of a Training Class

in one simple step:

When teaching a class on yet another software development process (YASDP) which uses approximately a million unfathomable acronyms (UA)… if you are asked what an acronym represents, stand there perplexed and then say “please refer to the document in the reference section of your big ass binder (BAB) entitled “1001 Acronyms”. I kid you not.

At least there are snacks…

Tuesday, August 10, 2004

I’ve Rewritten My Job Description:

Attend as many pointless meetings and conference calls where things that have already been discussed to death without resolution will be discussed again (with out coming to a resolution) as possible.

I believe on my goal setting document if that is my job description I am in for an outstanding review and a whopping raise!

Thursday, August 05, 2004

Seriously…

Actual phone conversation at work recently:

ring ring

me: hello, this is Amy

{10 seconds of pure silence}

person from another department (pfad): ummm…. yeahh.. uumm….

(now I speak to this person regularly so I know who it is from her voice, but I wait)

pfad: umm, yeah… um, Amy… . yeah, it’s pfad.

me: hi

pfad: yeah, umm… {silence} ummm…. we should talk about… um…
yeah…. umm…. let me pull it up… yeah. um… {more silence}

(I have no idea what she wants to talk about and I’ve decided I’m not going to help her out by just asking. I’m facinated to see how long she will go on like this with no focus)

pfad: you see… um,, well.. yeah.. the thing is…

(I’m thinking to myself: this person found my number, dialed it, waited for me to answer and the whole time hadn’t put a thought together as to how to explain what she needed to talk to me about. Well, I’m willing wait)

pfad: yeah…. well. do you know what I’m saying?

me: no

pfad: yeah…. umm…

(I begin thinking about the woman next to me on the train this morning. She had on purple mascara. Are colored mascaras back? Where does one even get them these days?)

pfad: umm, the thing is we need to {extended pause} talk about, um…

(I’m seriously considering asking her if she is high right now)

me: what is it?

pfad: testing

me: you mean testing for project X for which there is a meeting scheduled tomorrow?

pfad: um… well, yeah.

me: why don’t we talk about it tomorrow at the meeting with the whole team

pfad: ok

Seriously, I can’t take it sometimes. I don’t know how I don’t flip out at people.