‘Ello all.

It’s been a while.

Happy New Year, Happy Christmas, Happy Holidays, etc.

My Christmas gifts included some much-needed new sweaters and socks, a pair of lovely children, and an Xbox 360. No gamertag yet. However, I do have pictures of some epic paintjobs from Forza Motorsports 2, which I will share with you right nao!

 

Ladies and gentelmen…

An announcement to make.

Earlier today, my lovely wife Heather gave birth to two lovely children, Anna Elizabeth McIntosh and Arthur Edgar McIntosh.

Just thought you’d like to know.

-Lewis

 

Updates on an arsehat.

Well, Matt (the previously-mentioned auditing department n00b) faced the Audit Panel on Friday. We’ll get there in a moment, but first, something completely different. Went up to Boston on Sunday around noontime to see some old friends, and more importantly, to pick up my friend Edgar, from London, who’s vistiting here on work all weekend. He’s staying with us for the week, and it’s fantastic to see him again.Heather’s quite well, and now we return to our update, already in progress.

As I was saying, he presented to the Audit Board on Friday. Most new auditors make the mistake of reporting “discrepancies” and “code violations” and “company handbook violations” from the IT department. They don’t know yet that we work to our own tune. The more interesting bits of the report included (these are direct quotes):

• An average of 16 dress code violations…per day
• Lack of respect for company property (walls/cubicles with various adhesives used to attach posters and other assorted, useless decorations)
• Lack of respect for other co-workers
• Failure to follow Robert’s Rules of Order during weekly staff meetings
• Failure to have weekly staff meetings on a weekly basis
• When staff meetings do occur, they take place on a ping-pong table in the server room, with many non-related topics being discussed (sample topics include an upcoming fashion show, various family issues, a deep discussion on how much various (not-to-be-named) members of the IT staff would like to have sexual relations with various people, and an even deeper discussion on desktop pictures.)
• Department head refuses to use proper English, instead using an obscure British variant. (Excuse me, but since when is British English obscure and not proper?)
• The American flag is not displayed enough in this department, Accounting has a flag on every desk. IT has various non-American country flags, a United Nations flag, and quite a few flags from something called the “United Federation of Planets,” whatever that may be.
• Completely incomprehensible language. Foreign terms include (spelling may be off) “wankar,” “ars,” “fiber-optical connecting,” “lahnux,” “newb,” “stoo-foo,” and “feck.”
• My cubicle is very very hot, and smells like coffee and processed sugars. (Editor’s note: His cubicle is right next to the IT department’s snack table. Matt does *not* like anything artifical, nor does he like coffee. There’s something wrong with this kid, I swear.)

Once Matt was done presenting to the Audit Board, they looked through his handouts, looked at each other, then laughed hysterically, before calling me up to defend my self. My defense consisted of the following points:

• Despite these glaring issues, we’re the best-run department in the building.
• The last time we had a system failure, it was my former boss’s fault.
• All-time downtime percentages are at 1% of operating time.
• You have no imagination r creativity, and you have no idea what it means to be in Information Technology. GTFO.

Before he got back, the others in IT set to work pranking his cubicle:

• The vent above his cube has been adjusted – now it’s the coldest cube on the floor, due to the trap door in the A/C vent being opened. (IT was getting a little warm anyway.)
• One of those things that beeps at random intervals has been hidden inside his phone.
• His phone has been tapped.
• An old sandwich has been hidden inside a drawer. Give it a few days, and it’ll be mouldy.

That’s the news from Floor 2, Section 5. Hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.

 

Just another day at the office.

NOT.

This has literally been the Week from Hell.

The story starts 2 weeks ago. It was a perfectly normal day, until 10:30. I see the boss coming down the hallway and discreetly hide my game of OpenTTD. Trailing him is what looks like a recent buisness school graduate, with a MBA whose ink has barely dried.

Turns out I was right. Entitlement junkie (yuppie, whatever you want to call it) has been assigned to MY department as a liaison to the Auditing Department. Used to, they just had an auditor come down every so often, but now we’ve got a guy with his own cube. (Thankfully, I was involved in the cube-picking process. He currently has the cubicle with the worst ventilation. It’s always steaming hot.) This guy is a yuppie in the worst sense of the word, and he has no clue how things work in the realm of ANY information technology department, never mind mine. The boss left for a moment to get his briefcase before the 3 of us went out to lunch. I stood up to grab my coat and scarf and all, and he starts critiquing things. Chief among them:

• “Your socks need to be matched.” (I was wearing one polka-dot sock and one black sock.)

• “Where’s your tie? Why isn’t your shirt buttoned?” (I was wearing an Apple t-shirt under a plaid shirt.)

• “Those pants aren’t approved in the dress code.” (I was wearing khaki cargo pants, dress code states no cargo pants. IT handbook states “Screw the dress code.”

• “Your hair is fucked up.” (You all know what my hair looks like, I think. If not, picture an early-Beatles haircut.)

• “Why aren’t there any American flags in here? Where’s your love for your homeland?” (Firstly, he sounds like a Russian. Secondly, I have British and Norwegian flags in my office (to honor my heritage.) Thirdly, my homeland isn’t America.)

• “You drive that piece of shit?” (Firstly, my Saab 900 isn’t a piece of shit. Secondly, nobody calls MY car a piece of shit without getting his seat heater disconnected. It was COLD that day, around 30 or so.)

Lunch went a bit better, he turned back into his reasonable, eager self. I learned that he was starting this week, and as soon as I got back, I gave orders that his life should be made as hard as possible.

So Monday morning, he walks in all cheerful, and as is customary for new people in my department, I took him to lunch. Monday, I drove my Saab 96. Earlier that morning, I disconnected the heater vent for his side of the cabin. During lunch, he made the comment that our “standards are lacking” and that “that scarf and trenchcoat makes you look like a fool.” He clearly has no originality whatsoever.

For those who don’t know (most of you, I think,) my scarf is roughly identical to that of the Fourth Doctor’s.

He spent most of this week snooping around the office and being a general pain in the arse.

He makes a presentation this week on what he’s found to the Audit Department tomorrow. As department head, I will be sitting in on this meeting. Expect a great post.

 

Notes on a pregnancy.

For some reason, I really do like this whole “Notes on a <topic>” naming scheme.

Back to our original topic. Firstly, we now know the genders of Heather’s children.

Twins. One boy, one girl.

And now, back to our usual rambling blog post.

 

Notes on Leopard.

I just installed Mac OS X 10.5. WOOHOO!

This isn’t going to be a comprehensive review, that might come a bit later. These are just a few general observations after 5 minutes of using it.

 

Remind me…

…to never chaperone a school dance again. If I feel like retaining the rest of my sanity, that is.

Editor’s Note: This is the first in a (hopefully long) series of posts about life as a high school teacher by my lovely wife, Heather.

Try and stay easy on her, this is her first blog. 😛

-Lewis

 

SURPRISE BUTTSEX.

Actually, no. Surprise *something else*.

 

Forlat Bak Smörgåsbord.

You most likely have no clue what that means.

It’s ok. Most people don’t.

It’s an old family tradition on my mom’s side of the family that started around the Great Depression.

 

Dress code?

• We don’t need no stinkin’ dress code!

(Note: This blog post was inspired by something I saw on Lifehacker, a site that has suggestions for dress codes for various events, like job interviews and such.

I was therefore inspired to write down my usual dress “code,” as it’s really more a series of unrelated suggestions. It’s really quite random, and if I wasn’t as well-liked at the office as I am, I would have been fired by now.

Before that, though, I found a very useful Firefox plug-in called FoxyTunes, which lets me control iTunes through a little set of icons in the bottom statusbar. It also lets me add now-playing signatures like these:
—————-
Now playing: The Strokes – New York City Cops
via FoxyTunes

Now that we all know what I’m listening to, on with today’s regularly scheduled blog post.