this job...

I feel a bit ick working here. Everything they do is underhanded, from the way they gather data to the way they maintain clients.

A job? Maybe!

I had an interview today. It went really well, in spite of the doors being locked when I got there. I'm in the top 5 of candidates, out of (at least) 82.
Wish me luck!

a Quarter of a century

So, in about an hour and a half (give or take a few minutes) I turn 25 years old. I have had 4 "real" jobs, and lost 3 of them. the fourth I quit in disgust. I am interviewing for a job as a market analyst tomorrow, after seeing my sister (for the first time in a couple years (I think)) and my Auntie Diane (not actually related)(for the first time in many more years). I had an old high-school.. I guess you'd call him chum contact me, and having an old crush who crushed me email and ask for help with something.
it sort of feels like my life is circling itself, coming back together. I hadn't realized that it wasn't together before, though. All I need now is for one of my psychotic ex-girlfriends to come back into my life, and I'll feel 17 again. I wasn't all that happy at 17.
If I wanted to be pessimistic, I'd say that on the last day of my first quarter century, I was broke, living off of my parents and the generosity of others, unemployed due to an inherent contrariness to being told what to do, and much more overweight than I'm comfortable with. Not to mention frequently depressed.
On the optimistic side, I would say that I have a happy relationship with a wonderful guy, I have family and friends who are able and willing to help me through tough times, I have found many things I can do that aren't terribly expensive but are terribly fun, and have tons of free time.
What I will say is that I am unemployed, but interviewing for a job that I am qualified for. I'm not doing fantastic, but I'm better than I have been, and improving often, and I have several sources of happiness in my life.

I probably can't make it to canada any time soon, although I want to very badly. However, my recent unemployed state has taught me to manage my money a little better than I had in the past, so when I DO get to go, I'll have more money than I did the last few times.

Anyway, i need to get to bed, because I suck at getting up still. Send comments (Do i have comments enabled on here? I don't think I do...) to whatever you want to call me at acwpd dot com.

Edit: I DO have comments enabled. Email if you want, or use the built in comment system!

How is this hard logic?

Okay, lawyers are supposed to be smart, logical people, right? So how does this conversation make sense?
Lawyer: I need the documents that the employee shows up on, from the 2 pay periods prior to their termination, and the document from their termination pay period, and the document from the first pay period they do not show up on.
me: Okay, so I'm giving you no more than 4 documents, right?
Lawyer: Why 4?
Me: [Counting on fingers] 2 pay periods previous, One pay period previous, pay period of, and the first that they do not show up on
Lawyer: Oh, yes. Okay. 4.
Me: [having looked at some of the documents] What if they don't show up on the pay period of termination?
Lawyer: What do you mean?
Me: I mean, what do you want if the person in question terminated on, say, Tuesday of the week that the document references, but they do not show up on the document? Do you want another document after that document?
Lawyer: Oh, that can't happen. Every piece of testimony we have from them says that doesn't happen.
Me: I can give you an example, if you like.
Lawyer: Okay.
[Time passes]
Me: Here is an example packet. It contains [Documents that I am sure they want], as well as the document showing the pay period 2 cycles before they termed, The pay period immediately prior to termination, and the document showing the pay period when they termed.
Lawyer: [Sees that the third document is 14 pages long, where the first two are single page] Why is this so long?
Me: Because I can't print the page they are on, because they aren't on there.
Lawyer: [discusses with another lawyer, who confirms that this can not be the case, testimony says so] Well, this must be a rare case. Go ahead and get this info for all of the 50 people you have.
Me: Okay.
[time passes]
Me: I had to pare the 50 people down to 33, because I lacked documents for the other people.
Lawyer: Why are these final packets so big?
Me: [trying hard not to get mad] Because they are the pay period that the employee doesn't show up on. Usually the pay period of termination.
Lawyer: what is "Usually"?
Me: [think for a moment] Not more than 5 of them are from after. So, no less than 28 of the 33.
Lawyer: Okay. give these to [Third lawyer].
Me: Alright.
[To Third Lawyer's Office!]
Me: [First Lawyer] told me to give these to you.
Third: Why is this packet so large?
Me: [explains again about they-aren't-there]
Third: Okay. Why do I need this?
Me: Ask [First].
[I retreat. Time passes. A whole day, in fact.]
Third: I was looking over this packet [refers to packet of "Not in this pay period report"] and this person isn't on here. Why not?
me: [Explain. Again.]
What I didn't say: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!! How can you not know? Seriously? YOU ASKED FOR THAT! I TOLD YOU! GO BUG SOMEONE ELSE!

< /rant >

Issues

Currently, I have a couple issues.
I Don't want to work for my current employer anymore. I think it's time to move on. I have a bunch of Craigslist postings in my mailbox, waiting for me to reply. How odd; I'll write a blog post at work, but won't apply for jobs while at work. My ethics are quirky.
I have worries about Me and TJ. We've been together for a while, but when I think back on how he is around other people, he's a jerk. But I love him. *sigh* Damn you darkness, This candle isn't lit!
I am faced with lagging behind a LOT in WoW, because I have less time to play than most of my guild. TJ is already a level ahead of me, as is Angie. I seem to have a couple choices: quest my way through, falling ever farther behind; Grind and grind and grind and grind, and still fall behind; Grind out leather and ore on Evil until the population explosion dies doewn; Instance grind. I hear there is a healer shortage... and I can MAKE very solid tank OR healer gear. I'm thinking this is the way i will go. Heal-grind (less of a tank shortage, due to DK's).

Ah well. Whatever's clever, guess. Just feel slike cheating, somehow.

Organization and File Types

I work -- well, I won't say. those of you who know me, probably know. If not, call or e-mail. Anyway, where I work, we have a lot of documents to keep track of -- somewhere on the order of 2 million, for various clients. One of these clients is responsible for us having nearly a half million documents. Now, my definition of "Documents" may be different than yours. In the world I am in at work, each page that was given to us is a document, and each file or spreadsheet we create is a document.
Now, of these documents, we keep a number of them -- all of the ones given to us -- are numbered. Starting at 1 and going until we run out of documents. We have about 367,000 of these. For this client.
These documents were given to us as paper. Behind me is a wall covered in paper. Over the last 3 years (that's how long we've been gathering documents for this customer) we have been putting images of these documents into our computers. At first we were sending them out to be scanned, then we got a copy machine that can scan, and did it ourselves. But, alas, we were inconsistent.

My work computer is currently trying to convert 5061 TIF images into 5061 PDF images. And it's going VERY slowly.

See, I went ahead and got a trial copy of photoshop -- if I'm lucky, I'll never need to do this again -- so that I could convert the TIF's (and 22 JPG's) into PDF in a batch, rather than one at a time. I'm having issues doing this - every time I've tried today, I get a save-as dialog for every file.

So, if you ever have thousands of files to deal with, decide on a format BEFORE you begin. And don't waver, because it's a pain in the ass.

Canada, Work and my body's unwillingness

So, I got to work today (that's where I am now, btw) and couldn't focus my eyes. the phrase "to tired to see straight" comes to mind.
I hadn't slept well last night, and I am pretty sure I had WoW dreams - I woke up certain that I was at an extreme angle, and was really confused and upset that I couldn't fill the bag with purple (no, I'm not certain what that means). Once I got to work, I found that my eyes would not stay converged. If you don't know what I mean, look at a Magic Eye picture. Notice how your eyes go wonky? My eyes wouldn't stop doing that. So I took a nap in my car after clocking out, and came back sweat-soaked but refreshed. I sat down and worked for about 20 minutes, and then my nose started bleeding, somewhat spontaneously.
30 minutes later (!), I came back from the bathroom, my nose finally not bleeding any more. I don't think my body wants to be at work today. My mind sure doesn't.

Tomorrow, I leave for Canada to play in (and run games for) Ancient Enemies? A Zeif / Duchy Bordercon... which is to say, I'm going to play D&D for 4 days straight. I should have fun.