Yes Sir, That's My Baby
Hello World,
How time flies and then some. It seems like only yesterday, it was August 17th, and we all know what that means. No, wait a minute, that can't be right. What I mean is, it seems like you just look up, and the year is more than half over already, and nothing to show for it, that's the scary part. The time just seems to go rattling along, whether we're ready for it or not, and pretty soon, you're looking back over the ages and wondering whatever happened. I was reminded of this recently when I went to install some software on the spare computer at work, and which I was thinking of as fairly modern and up-to-date, when I found them assuring me during the installation process that their program was completely Year 2000 compliant. What a relief!
I'm sure it will come as a surprise to everyone, myself included, that the hospital finally got around to replacing our retired co-worker in Purchasing with a new person earlier this week. That sound you don't hear is the sound of me blowing my brains out after trying to do two jobs for eight months, not that there was much left to blow at this point. It's been my experience that when a department needs to fill a vacancy, rather than sifting through applications to find the most qualified candidate, the hospital simply assigns someone to the department who is most likely: (1) "connected" to a Board member; (B) from a list of laid-off employees that they don't want to keep paying benefits to; or (iii) a problem employee that they have to move out of a different department because of complaints from co-workers. So we were prepared to be "underwhelmed" with our new addition, and since there's no choice in the matter, it does no good to complain.
Anyway, our new person, who I would call Hosanna, because I was just so glad to get someone after all this time, is a nice young woman from another department in the hospital, and happens to be of a different ethnic category than the other three people already in Purchasing. This fact seemed to be of some concern to our Vice President who interviewed her, and said to me later that he hoped that hiring her wouldn't affect the "chemistry" that we had in our department. This was the first that I ever considered that we had anything like "chemistry" in Purchasing, and it made me wonder what he thought our other options would be, under the circumstances, that would preserve this supposed element that he thought was so important. Did he think we could lure our recently departed co-worker out of retirement to return to her post and thus keep our chemistry intact? Or perhaps he thought we should limit our potential replacements to other 70-year-old women with no office skills, thereby maintaining that quality of camaraderie that he found so appealing. Personally, I was just as happy with Hosanna, who not only knows her way around a computer, but is also completely Year 2000 compliant.
It appears that the auditors have packed up their tents and stolen away in the night, because they don't seem to be using those empty offices in the hallway any more, as they were a few weeks ago. The one good thing about having the auditors there is that someone always makes sure that the ladies room is fully stocked with the necessary supplies at all times, because they don't want to upset the auditors in any way, and the rest of us all benefit from this largesse, when the rest of the time, they couldn't care less about us. After they left, we ran out of soap, first in one dispenser and then the other, so I finally had to call Housekeeping and ask them to refill the soap dispensers. Now, our housekeeping services (pardon me, that's "Facilities Management" in the new health care jargon) are provided by an outside company, and they are responsible for their own supplies and cleaning products. The soap dispensers that they had installed include a handy "peep hole" feature in the front, so you can see how much soap is in the dispenser, or when it needs to be replenished. That is, you could see what's in the dispenser, if the soap was white or pink, for instance, and it would show through the peep hole. However, the brilliant thinkers who order their supplies decided to select instead a clear liquid soap, which is impossible to see, thereby rendering the entire peep hole concept totally irrelevant. This is taking the idea of "soap confidentiality" a little too far for my tastes.
In addition to being invisible, I found the new soap didn't do much in the way of lather, and for a product with limited obligations, I thought these were two rather significant drawbacks. I happened to be in the ladies room at the same time as Jean the bookkeeper from down the hall, and I mentioned that the new soap didn't lather as well as the previous choice, possibly reflecting a change to a less expensive item. Jean, who has been working at the employer of last resort at least as long as I have, and has seen them come and go and then some, actually said, "Maybe they picked this new soap because it's milder and is more gentle to the skin, and not as harsh so that it dries everything out when you use it." I looked straight at her and then held up my hand to her forehead, the way mothers do when they want to see if their children are feverish. She laughed. I didn't realize that this new soap also had the ability to make people hallucinate, so that's obviously something else we need to be on the lookout for.
Meanwhile, on the cutting edge of technology front, Bill was attempting to report a problem with our telephone service, by calling Verizon's automated feature where you speak and the jolly synthesized attendant is supposed to understand you and take care of your problem, with the following results --
====================================
The fun part is -- just try to report phone problems these days.
Calling the repair number was so annoying ("Did you say
'Pilliam'? I'm sorry, Pulliam. I'm not understanding you.
Please, Gillian, say that again.") that I ended up reporting
the problem online. Faster, less personal, but lacking that
human interaction that worked so well when you would
report phone problems. At least in the old days, the
Operator would test the line while you were on it and
let you know if it was their problem or your problem.
====================================
Hmmmm. I'd say there's some room for improvement there. And while we're on the subject of names, I came across an interesting article in the USA Weekend magazine about celebrity baby names, and while many of us are already aware of Woody Allen's Satchel or Gwyneth Paltrow's Apple (not to mention Bruce Willis and Demi Moore with Rumer, Scout and Tallulah) many of these others were new to me, and as surprises go, unpleasant at that:
David Beckham (athlete) - Brooklyn
Toni Braxton (singer) - Denim
Rachel Griffiths (actress) - Banjo
Marcia Gay Harden (actress) - Eulala
Penn Jillette (comedian) - Moxie CrimeFighter
Jason Lee (actor) - Pilot Inspektor
Elle Macpherson (model) - Aurelius
Jamie Oliver (chef) - Daisy Boo and Poppy Honey
Julia Roberts (actress) - Phinnaeus
Shannyn Sossamon (actress) - Audio Science
Well, I suppose there are worse names that people can come up with (I remember a colleague at another hospital complaining about a newborn named Pretzel) but even I'm thinking that it would be hard to dis-improve on Moxie CrimeFighter for an infant. In any case, that should give us all something to be grateful for, no matter how much we might hate our own names, that at least our parents didn't call us Audio Science instead, or even worse, Year 2000 Compliant.
We were at CVS earlier today, and Bill pointed out what he thought looked like a display of Halloween candy in the seasonal aisle. "Don't be silly," I said, "It's August. It certainly wouldn't be Halloween candy." Sure enough, on closer inspection, it turned out to be that standard of seasonal merchandise, a display of back-to-school candy. Oh, how the times have changed, since the dinosaurs and I went back to school, trudging through the primordial ooze, on our way to learn important lessons about dirt, rocks and fire. (Inventors were still working on the wheel at that time.) It seems like only 50 years ago when back-to-school meant new clothes, new shoes, a new bookbag and lunchbox, spiral notebooks, pencils and ruler, and the idea of fun-size candy bars never entered into it at any point along the way. I don't know what the dinosaurs would think of it, but you can believe me when I say that we managed to survive without back-to-school candy, and somehow still be Year 120 Million B.C. compliant, or my name isn't
Mrs. Pilliam Pulliam Gillian
How time flies and then some. It seems like only yesterday, it was August 17th, and we all know what that means. No, wait a minute, that can't be right. What I mean is, it seems like you just look up, and the year is more than half over already, and nothing to show for it, that's the scary part. The time just seems to go rattling along, whether we're ready for it or not, and pretty soon, you're looking back over the ages and wondering whatever happened. I was reminded of this recently when I went to install some software on the spare computer at work, and which I was thinking of as fairly modern and up-to-date, when I found them assuring me during the installation process that their program was completely Year 2000 compliant. What a relief!
I'm sure it will come as a surprise to everyone, myself included, that the hospital finally got around to replacing our retired co-worker in Purchasing with a new person earlier this week. That sound you don't hear is the sound of me blowing my brains out after trying to do two jobs for eight months, not that there was much left to blow at this point. It's been my experience that when a department needs to fill a vacancy, rather than sifting through applications to find the most qualified candidate, the hospital simply assigns someone to the department who is most likely: (1) "connected" to a Board member; (B) from a list of laid-off employees that they don't want to keep paying benefits to; or (iii) a problem employee that they have to move out of a different department because of complaints from co-workers. So we were prepared to be "underwhelmed" with our new addition, and since there's no choice in the matter, it does no good to complain.
Anyway, our new person, who I would call Hosanna, because I was just so glad to get someone after all this time, is a nice young woman from another department in the hospital, and happens to be of a different ethnic category than the other three people already in Purchasing. This fact seemed to be of some concern to our Vice President who interviewed her, and said to me later that he hoped that hiring her wouldn't affect the "chemistry" that we had in our department. This was the first that I ever considered that we had anything like "chemistry" in Purchasing, and it made me wonder what he thought our other options would be, under the circumstances, that would preserve this supposed element that he thought was so important. Did he think we could lure our recently departed co-worker out of retirement to return to her post and thus keep our chemistry intact? Or perhaps he thought we should limit our potential replacements to other 70-year-old women with no office skills, thereby maintaining that quality of camaraderie that he found so appealing. Personally, I was just as happy with Hosanna, who not only knows her way around a computer, but is also completely Year 2000 compliant.
It appears that the auditors have packed up their tents and stolen away in the night, because they don't seem to be using those empty offices in the hallway any more, as they were a few weeks ago. The one good thing about having the auditors there is that someone always makes sure that the ladies room is fully stocked with the necessary supplies at all times, because they don't want to upset the auditors in any way, and the rest of us all benefit from this largesse, when the rest of the time, they couldn't care less about us. After they left, we ran out of soap, first in one dispenser and then the other, so I finally had to call Housekeeping and ask them to refill the soap dispensers. Now, our housekeeping services (pardon me, that's "Facilities Management" in the new health care jargon) are provided by an outside company, and they are responsible for their own supplies and cleaning products. The soap dispensers that they had installed include a handy "peep hole" feature in the front, so you can see how much soap is in the dispenser, or when it needs to be replenished. That is, you could see what's in the dispenser, if the soap was white or pink, for instance, and it would show through the peep hole. However, the brilliant thinkers who order their supplies decided to select instead a clear liquid soap, which is impossible to see, thereby rendering the entire peep hole concept totally irrelevant. This is taking the idea of "soap confidentiality" a little too far for my tastes.
In addition to being invisible, I found the new soap didn't do much in the way of lather, and for a product with limited obligations, I thought these were two rather significant drawbacks. I happened to be in the ladies room at the same time as Jean the bookkeeper from down the hall, and I mentioned that the new soap didn't lather as well as the previous choice, possibly reflecting a change to a less expensive item. Jean, who has been working at the employer of last resort at least as long as I have, and has seen them come and go and then some, actually said, "Maybe they picked this new soap because it's milder and is more gentle to the skin, and not as harsh so that it dries everything out when you use it." I looked straight at her and then held up my hand to her forehead, the way mothers do when they want to see if their children are feverish. She laughed. I didn't realize that this new soap also had the ability to make people hallucinate, so that's obviously something else we need to be on the lookout for.
Meanwhile, on the cutting edge of technology front, Bill was attempting to report a problem with our telephone service, by calling Verizon's automated feature where you speak and the jolly synthesized attendant is supposed to understand you and take care of your problem, with the following results --
====================================
The fun part is -- just try to report phone problems these days.
Calling the repair number was so annoying ("Did you say
'Pilliam'? I'm sorry, Pulliam. I'm not understanding you.
Please, Gillian, say that again.") that I ended up reporting
the problem online. Faster, less personal, but lacking that
human interaction that worked so well when you would
report phone problems. At least in the old days, the
Operator would test the line while you were on it and
let you know if it was their problem or your problem.
====================================
Hmmmm. I'd say there's some room for improvement there. And while we're on the subject of names, I came across an interesting article in the USA Weekend magazine about celebrity baby names, and while many of us are already aware of Woody Allen's Satchel or Gwyneth Paltrow's Apple (not to mention Bruce Willis and Demi Moore with Rumer, Scout and Tallulah) many of these others were new to me, and as surprises go, unpleasant at that:
David Beckham (athlete) - Brooklyn
Toni Braxton (singer) - Denim
Rachel Griffiths (actress) - Banjo
Marcia Gay Harden (actress) - Eulala
Penn Jillette (comedian) - Moxie CrimeFighter
Jason Lee (actor) - Pilot Inspektor
Elle Macpherson (model) - Aurelius
Jamie Oliver (chef) - Daisy Boo and Poppy Honey
Julia Roberts (actress) - Phinnaeus
Shannyn Sossamon (actress) - Audio Science
Well, I suppose there are worse names that people can come up with (I remember a colleague at another hospital complaining about a newborn named Pretzel) but even I'm thinking that it would be hard to dis-improve on Moxie CrimeFighter for an infant. In any case, that should give us all something to be grateful for, no matter how much we might hate our own names, that at least our parents didn't call us Audio Science instead, or even worse, Year 2000 Compliant.
We were at CVS earlier today, and Bill pointed out what he thought looked like a display of Halloween candy in the seasonal aisle. "Don't be silly," I said, "It's August. It certainly wouldn't be Halloween candy." Sure enough, on closer inspection, it turned out to be that standard of seasonal merchandise, a display of back-to-school candy. Oh, how the times have changed, since the dinosaurs and I went back to school, trudging through the primordial ooze, on our way to learn important lessons about dirt, rocks and fire. (Inventors were still working on the wheel at that time.) It seems like only 50 years ago when back-to-school meant new clothes, new shoes, a new bookbag and lunchbox, spiral notebooks, pencils and ruler, and the idea of fun-size candy bars never entered into it at any point along the way. I don't know what the dinosaurs would think of it, but you can believe me when I say that we managed to survive without back-to-school candy, and somehow still be Year 120 Million B.C. compliant, or my name isn't
Mrs. Pilliam Pulliam Gillian
posted by El Tango Fandango @ 3:03 PM
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