Book: Yes, I'd forgotten you're moonlighting as a criminal mastermind now. Got your next heist planned? Simon: No. But I'm thinking about growing a big black mustache. I'm a traditionalist.

'War Stories'


Natter 71: Someone is wrong on the Internet  

Off-topic discussion. Wanna talk about corsets, duct tape, or physics? This is the place. Detailed discussion of any current-season TV must be whitefonted.


sarameg - Mar 19, 2013 3:38:35 pm PDT #15332 of 30001

"reward people for identifying risk even if they only raise a problem, no potential solutions"

Thankfully, since what I am tasked with is finding problems first and foremost, in my immediate work environment, I am appreciated for it. Of course, then it is either try to fix it or get the team on it, but the finding is valued. Although they do try to keep a buffer between me and upper mgmt. Even though when they've not succeeded, upper mgmt appreciates my...uh, blunt honesty. They just want solutions Right NOW, and clearly chafe when we have to tell them it isn't immediately forthcoming.

So, go you, promoting that!

...today was all about fixing old problems (that I thought I'd fixed, but turns out NSM!) and finding new ones. FUN TIMES. I had to have super focus AND the attention span of a gnat.


Jesse - Mar 19, 2013 3:40:27 pm PDT #15333 of 30001
Sometimes I trip on how happy we could be.

Congrats on getting through, ita!

...which reminds me, is anyone else weirded out/annoyed by the fact that Facebook now suggests buying a present for anyone who makes a post that gets congratulations in response?


Burrell - Mar 19, 2013 3:40:37 pm PDT #15334 of 30001
Why did Darth Vader cross the road? To get to the Dark Side!

Glad it's done, ita, and it sounds like it went well. Can you take a home day tomorrow?


brenda m - Mar 19, 2013 3:52:56 pm PDT #15335 of 30001
If you're going through hell/keep on going/don't slow down/keep your fear from showing/you might be gone/'fore the devil even knows you're there

and the point I stuck together totally on the fly to support my last slide "reward people for identifying risk even if they only raise a problem, no potential solutions

At least one of our clients, we have a quarterly performance metric for number of so called "near miss" reports for id'ing potential safety or performance hazards. If it were less than say 10 (I don't know the actual #), we'd get dinged some of our fee.


amych - Mar 19, 2013 3:59:40 pm PDT #15336 of 30001
Now let us crush something soft and watch it fountain blood. That is a girlish thing to want to do, yes?

I can't remember if I ever told this story here: a couple of years back, my dad decided that he was ready to be done with his job, but he didn't actually want to retire. Instead, he was going to start law school at age 69, and not just for the intellectual challenge -- he wants to go out and practice public-interest law when he gets out. So now they went and put him in the Times. I'm kinda ridiculously proud of him.


Liese S. - Mar 19, 2013 4:05:11 pm PDT #15337 of 30001
"Faded like the lilac, he thought."

I had a Liese AT MY HOUSE! neener neener neener.

It was awesome! I'm just sorry it was short. But I had a msbelle!

I am now back home, where there are none of you, which is sad. But I am happy to be back home. The SO is already working, the freak. I have about the cognitive ability left to microwave a pizza, and that might even be in question.

In my head I was totally going to weed and do laundry when I got home, but yeah, no.


Jesse - Mar 19, 2013 4:13:51 pm PDT #15338 of 30001
Sometimes I trip on how happy we could be.

That's very cool, amych!


sarameg - Mar 19, 2013 4:18:01 pm PDT #15339 of 30001

That's cool, amych! Good for him.

I'm glad my dad got into the Water Board stuff, cause I think it intellectually stimulates him (law and water rights and geology and civic infrastructure, oh my!) when he retired. But I'm also glad he's realized he needs to take it down a notch and resigned as President. Still on the board, just less day to day responsibility. And he's still President NM Academy of Sciences. And for the local natural history museum. So. Down a notch, relatively speaking.


SuziQ - Mar 19, 2013 4:33:27 pm PDT #15340 of 30001
Back tattoos of the mother is that you are absolutely right - Ame

CJ loves to ask "what would you do if you had all the money you wanted" type questions. I bore him with first setting up trusts for him and K-Bug so I know they are set and paying off my debts. Then it would be all travel and education. I'd love to go back to school and major in something other than business. I don't know what right now. Maybe learn a language and then go to that country. Lather, rinse, repeat. I know English, so I could visit there first!


Liese S. - Mar 19, 2013 4:59:28 pm PDT #15341 of 30001
"Faded like the lilac, he thought."

I am having some serious cases of wanderlust right now. I suppose it's just spring and having so many friends jetting off to fabulous (okay, admittedly mostly on severe conditions work trips, but nonetheless) locales. But I think I'd better step up the "renew Liese's passport" plan.

Man, I just realized I let the SO drive off not only with apparently my backpack with all the tech stuff other than my actual laptop in it, which means I can't plug in the dongle and play with Pro Tools any tonight. AND with the bag of bacon jerky. Did y'all know there was such a thing as bacon jerky? Because there is. I ate three bags of it on this road trip alone. It is bacon! On demand! Just sitting there in your car for any time you're, say, purely hypothetically, sitting in a traffic jam in Dallas and fuming, and you need bacon. And then suddenly all the drivers around you get nicer and the wait gets shorter, because, bacon!