Aliens Among Us
Hello World,
Ah, for those halcyon days of yore, when normally I would be wishing everyone a very happy SuperBowl Weekend, but alas, that was then and this is now. We all realize now, and some with regret, that they don't play the SuperBowl on the last Sunday in January any more, so the only thing we have to remember this weekend for now is the yearly donnybrook that we call our Annual Congregational Meeting at church. I don't claim that it's the Cowboys and the Dolphins, although some years, it would give the Browns and the Redskins a run for their money, at least when it comes to name-calling and throwing things. And so we have that looming ... er, I mean, to look forward to on Sunday, and not even a gridiron spectacular later as a reward for our labors. Honestly, what is church coming to these days, I ask you that.
I suppose this is as good a time as any to thank you for your wonderful Christmas card, which was very much appreciated in the holly jolly spirit of the season. I loved the decorative holiday ribbon, and that adorable picture of Daisy all dressed up in her festive garb. That was such a great card, and one of our absolute favorites of the entire bunch we received from all and sundry. Thanks so much for thinking of us and sending it our way to lend its merry glow to the Yuletide. Ho ho ho.
Everyone knows how I aim to be helpful, so just in case you were lounging around and looking for something to occupy your time, I have found just the thing. It combines a love of adventure and travel, with technology and gadgets, plus a bit of cloak-and-dagger mystery thrown in for good measure, and it all accomplishes absolutely nothing, giving it a negative productivity rating that would be hard to match. Feel free to give it a try at www.wheresgeorge.com, where you can enter the serial number of any denomination of American currency, and if it's listed, find out where it's been before you got it. (You have to register on the site if you want to follow its progress afterwards, but you can see its previous journeys without registering.) I stumbled over this at church, where one of the bills in the collection plate had the URL written on it, and when I looked it up at home (of, for crying out loud, of course I put another dollar in the plate to make up for it, sheesh!) they said it had traveled 743 miles in 254 days, from Milwaukee, Wisconsin on 5/13/05 to New Rochelle on Sunday. How cool is that! I think this is such a nifty idea, I was thinking of writing the URL on all of my bills, and registering them, so that the next person who gets them at the store or from the bank would be able to play along. After all, there's such a thing as too much productivity, you know.
Speaking of productivity, ours at work took a real nose-dive today when the telephone service tech was in our offices to re-program our phones. Even with our new temp, who has made tremendous inroads on our weeks of piled-up paperwork, I seem to be falling farther and farther behind, in spite of routinely coming in early, staying late and working through lunch. Part of the problem is making sure the temp has enough to do, that is simple enough to do by herself, while still being something that's important enough to be helpful. But the biggest problem is the phone, which on some days never stops ringing long enough to take a breath, much less get any work done. When I complained to our Vice President, he suggested forwarding the phones to my voice mail for a few hours so I could do some work uninterrupted. I pointed out this was like the Three Stooges bit where they say the dresser is too heavy to move with the drawers in it, so they take the drawers out and put them on top of the dresser and then move it. Instead of answering 100 calls coming in one at a time over the course of the morning, I would have to answer those same 100 calls all at once by playing them back from my voice mail. What I wanted to do was reduce the quantity, not just shift the same quantity to another time of day. He spoke with the Telecommunications director, who recommended a menu greeting on our main number, so callers could simply press a button to reach the person they needed, without every call going through me first. The other people in the department would get their own calls directly, and I would only get those calls that were for me (or general inquiries) which is how all of the other departments have been doing it for years, except us. So today the phone guy was climbing all over and under and around our desks while we were trying to work, and we all had to stop and record new greetings for our voice mail, including day greetings and night greetings, internal greetings and external greetings, and deal with the people who wandered over from other areas to say they couldn't reach us on the phone in the interim. Of course, after he left, we found out that the main menu greeting was set up incorrectly, and people who tried to reach our receptionist would have found it fiendishly impossible. Fortunately they solved that problem, but it's just a matter of time before we discover other bugs in this arrangement. But at least one of us is hopeful that this will make life worth living again, because right now, I don't have time to even go to the bathroom.
In fact (and I certainly hope this is one of those stories that becomes funnier in retrospect) on Tuesday, I left work so late that when I walked down the street to pick up the Tempo from the mechanic's, I found that it had been entirely blocked in by local residents using the property as a free after-hours parking lot. I didn't want to walk all the way back up the hill to the hospital to call home for a ride, so here I was, walking around in the dark looking for a pay phone in an unfamiliar neighborhood. I didn't find one at the deli or the gas station (although people assured me there was one there) so I walked around the block looking for anything that was open where I could try. I struck out at the nail salon, record store and dental clinic, and crossed the street to try the next open place, hoping for better luck. This turned into one of those sitcom moments, where the middle-aged suburban housewife inadvertently wanders into the Latino pool hall and bar, to the strains of the "Mexican Hat Dance" blaring out of loudspeakers, and everyone can't help but stop and stare as if a three-headed polka dot space alien had just landed from another planet. They were so dumbstruck that when I made the universal sign of "telephone" with my hand, they just gaped at me and had to pull someone from the back room who could understand Anglo hand gestures. Fortunately, the helpful young man steered me in the right direction, and I found the pay phone, although it was with some screwy telecom service that wouldn't accept my calling card, so I gave it a quarter instead and hoped for the best. And poor Bill, who is not always recognized for his saintliness, but should be, came to my rescue, and even came up with the idea to pick up something to eat on the way home. Naturally, the place we decided on was closed, but what else could you expect from the way things had been going? And later, even though I didn't watch the Rangers play, they lost anyway, so I even managed to jinx them by remote control. Obviously, this is not a three-headed polka dot space alien to be trifled with.
Everyone knows that you take your life in your hands trying to cross the street to the employee parking lot, which is part of the hospital's nefarious plot to drum up more business for their emergency room, by having the staff run into by cars. Especially after 5:00 when it's dark, and even in the pedestrian cross-walk, it's a chancy proposition at best. I like to try and cross along with a doctor in a lab coat, or better yet, a pregnant nurse, figuring that they have the best chance of getting the traffic to let them pass unmolested. Tonight, when I left work late (again) and in the dark (again) I came up to the intersection at the same time as a young man of African American descent, who was wearing nothing but camouflage from the top of his head to the soles of his feet. I couldn't help but blurt out, "I shouldn't cross with you! You're entirely dressed in camo and no one can see you! They're going to run you over because you're camouflaged, and then they're going to hit me because I'm behind you!" He laughed. You'd think he'd never seen a three-headed polka dot space alien before.
Ah, for those halcyon days of yore, when normally I would be wishing everyone a very happy SuperBowl Weekend, but alas, that was then and this is now. We all realize now, and some with regret, that they don't play the SuperBowl on the last Sunday in January any more, so the only thing we have to remember this weekend for now is the yearly donnybrook that we call our Annual Congregational Meeting at church. I don't claim that it's the Cowboys and the Dolphins, although some years, it would give the Browns and the Redskins a run for their money, at least when it comes to name-calling and throwing things. And so we have that looming ... er, I mean, to look forward to on Sunday, and not even a gridiron spectacular later as a reward for our labors. Honestly, what is church coming to these days, I ask you that.
I suppose this is as good a time as any to thank you for your wonderful Christmas card, which was very much appreciated in the holly jolly spirit of the season. I loved the decorative holiday ribbon, and that adorable picture of Daisy all dressed up in her festive garb. That was such a great card, and one of our absolute favorites of the entire bunch we received from all and sundry. Thanks so much for thinking of us and sending it our way to lend its merry glow to the Yuletide. Ho ho ho.
Everyone knows how I aim to be helpful, so just in case you were lounging around and looking for something to occupy your time, I have found just the thing. It combines a love of adventure and travel, with technology and gadgets, plus a bit of cloak-and-dagger mystery thrown in for good measure, and it all accomplishes absolutely nothing, giving it a negative productivity rating that would be hard to match. Feel free to give it a try at www.wheresgeorge.com, where you can enter the serial number of any denomination of American currency, and if it's listed, find out where it's been before you got it. (You have to register on the site if you want to follow its progress afterwards, but you can see its previous journeys without registering.) I stumbled over this at church, where one of the bills in the collection plate had the URL written on it, and when I looked it up at home (of, for crying out loud, of course I put another dollar in the plate to make up for it, sheesh!) they said it had traveled 743 miles in 254 days, from Milwaukee, Wisconsin on 5/13/05 to New Rochelle on Sunday. How cool is that! I think this is such a nifty idea, I was thinking of writing the URL on all of my bills, and registering them, so that the next person who gets them at the store or from the bank would be able to play along. After all, there's such a thing as too much productivity, you know.
Speaking of productivity, ours at work took a real nose-dive today when the telephone service tech was in our offices to re-program our phones. Even with our new temp, who has made tremendous inroads on our weeks of piled-up paperwork, I seem to be falling farther and farther behind, in spite of routinely coming in early, staying late and working through lunch. Part of the problem is making sure the temp has enough to do, that is simple enough to do by herself, while still being something that's important enough to be helpful. But the biggest problem is the phone, which on some days never stops ringing long enough to take a breath, much less get any work done. When I complained to our Vice President, he suggested forwarding the phones to my voice mail for a few hours so I could do some work uninterrupted. I pointed out this was like the Three Stooges bit where they say the dresser is too heavy to move with the drawers in it, so they take the drawers out and put them on top of the dresser and then move it. Instead of answering 100 calls coming in one at a time over the course of the morning, I would have to answer those same 100 calls all at once by playing them back from my voice mail. What I wanted to do was reduce the quantity, not just shift the same quantity to another time of day. He spoke with the Telecommunications director, who recommended a menu greeting on our main number, so callers could simply press a button to reach the person they needed, without every call going through me first. The other people in the department would get their own calls directly, and I would only get those calls that were for me (or general inquiries) which is how all of the other departments have been doing it for years, except us. So today the phone guy was climbing all over and under and around our desks while we were trying to work, and we all had to stop and record new greetings for our voice mail, including day greetings and night greetings, internal greetings and external greetings, and deal with the people who wandered over from other areas to say they couldn't reach us on the phone in the interim. Of course, after he left, we found out that the main menu greeting was set up incorrectly, and people who tried to reach our receptionist would have found it fiendishly impossible. Fortunately they solved that problem, but it's just a matter of time before we discover other bugs in this arrangement. But at least one of us is hopeful that this will make life worth living again, because right now, I don't have time to even go to the bathroom.
In fact (and I certainly hope this is one of those stories that becomes funnier in retrospect) on Tuesday, I left work so late that when I walked down the street to pick up the Tempo from the mechanic's, I found that it had been entirely blocked in by local residents using the property as a free after-hours parking lot. I didn't want to walk all the way back up the hill to the hospital to call home for a ride, so here I was, walking around in the dark looking for a pay phone in an unfamiliar neighborhood. I didn't find one at the deli or the gas station (although people assured me there was one there) so I walked around the block looking for anything that was open where I could try. I struck out at the nail salon, record store and dental clinic, and crossed the street to try the next open place, hoping for better luck. This turned into one of those sitcom moments, where the middle-aged suburban housewife inadvertently wanders into the Latino pool hall and bar, to the strains of the "Mexican Hat Dance" blaring out of loudspeakers, and everyone can't help but stop and stare as if a three-headed polka dot space alien had just landed from another planet. They were so dumbstruck that when I made the universal sign of "telephone" with my hand, they just gaped at me and had to pull someone from the back room who could understand Anglo hand gestures. Fortunately, the helpful young man steered me in the right direction, and I found the pay phone, although it was with some screwy telecom service that wouldn't accept my calling card, so I gave it a quarter instead and hoped for the best. And poor Bill, who is not always recognized for his saintliness, but should be, came to my rescue, and even came up with the idea to pick up something to eat on the way home. Naturally, the place we decided on was closed, but what else could you expect from the way things had been going? And later, even though I didn't watch the Rangers play, they lost anyway, so I even managed to jinx them by remote control. Obviously, this is not a three-headed polka dot space alien to be trifled with.
Everyone knows that you take your life in your hands trying to cross the street to the employee parking lot, which is part of the hospital's nefarious plot to drum up more business for their emergency room, by having the staff run into by cars. Especially after 5:00 when it's dark, and even in the pedestrian cross-walk, it's a chancy proposition at best. I like to try and cross along with a doctor in a lab coat, or better yet, a pregnant nurse, figuring that they have the best chance of getting the traffic to let them pass unmolested. Tonight, when I left work late (again) and in the dark (again) I came up to the intersection at the same time as a young man of African American descent, who was wearing nothing but camouflage from the top of his head to the soles of his feet. I couldn't help but blurt out, "I shouldn't cross with you! You're entirely dressed in camo and no one can see you! They're going to run you over because you're camouflaged, and then they're going to hit me because I'm behind you!" He laughed. You'd think he'd never seen a three-headed polka dot space alien before.
posted by El Tango Fandango @ 8:31 PM
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