i worked at a place a couple years ago, and shared a cubicle with a co-worker, nate. one time he had to work on a flash animation for the company website. this particular piece of flash had music that went along with it. nate needed to synchronize the music with the animations, and so needed to keep listening to the music over & over & over… this could potentially get very annoying for his co-workers. so nate used headphones to work. i don’t recall anyone asking him to use headphones, he just did so because he’s not a jerk.

let’s look at my current work environment. the HR lady that yelled at me across the office is working on a powerpoint. for one slide, she has a sound of a car screeching to a halt. i have heard that car screech to a halt about 25 times in the past 30 minutes. yes, i *am* annoyed. i don’t begrudge the fact she’s adding sounds to her ppt - that’s great. it bugs me that she has a door and doesn’t use it, she doesn’t use headphones, and she can’t freakin’ turn down her volume! i can hear the *ding* when she gets a piece of mail, and she’s like 25 feet away! jiminy crickets, i don’t like this woman at all!

Share This

i really need to get a digital recorder - then you’d really understand what i go through here at work. maybe i could get a microphone and just set it to record all the time, and whenever something interesting happens grab that snippet and post it… anyone know of any software that’s good at doing that?

Update:
http://www.spyarsenal.com/spy-microphone/
robo-nanny appears to be what i need - it will only record sound over a certain volume… definitely have to test this out when I have more time.

Share This

we had a stupid competition at work. there was a list of trivia questions about our company. one bonus question was “What does VOICE stand for?” (VOICE is the intranet for our company). when you go to the help section of VOICE, it has an acronym section, and then says that VOICE stands for ValueOptions, Inc. Communication Exchange. I put that as my answer and submitted it.

today we get a company-wide email saying that only one person got the bonus question right, and the answer was Value Options Interactive Communication Exchange. well, i decided that the person that made up this quiz might be interested to know that the company online information is wrong. so i wrote an email saying this:

If you go to the VOICE homepage, and then go to Help –> Acronyms, it says VOICE stands for ValueOptions, Inc. Communication Exchange. Seeing that the correct answer is Interactive, I went to the dictionary to be sure. According to http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=inc. it stands for incorporated. So was this entry on VOICE designed to throw people off?

Thanks,
Nathan

i promptly got back to work and subsequently forgot about this email.

an hour later, a woman yells “Hey Deb! Where does Nathan sit?” “right across from you…” “Hey Nathan! Are you there?” “um… yes…” “Well, I just wanted to tell you that i made a crossword puzzle and interactive was the word blah blah blah…” “oh.”

i immediately wrote an email saying,

were you just talking to me?

to the person that my original email was directed. i had never met this lady, and didn’t know who was yelling at me. so this woman that’s been yelling at me comes into my cubicle and asks me “did you take that the wrong way?” um… i took it the only it can be taken - some moron was yelling at me. i just responded, “no.” so she begins explaining the crossword puzzle to me blah blah blah. i interrupted her and said, “have you seen this?” and showed her the intranet site that has the wrong answer. she stopped, looked at it, and said, “oh. i haven’t seen that.” moron. why didn’t you read my email?

i reassure her that i’m ok - no hurt feelings, and she leaves. about 30 minutes later she returns with a transparency that *proves* she’s right. “i just want you to know i’m not lying”… “um, i believe you.” she leaves.

i really enjoy working from home.

Share This

about to unplug my computer for the hurricane… this is painful.

my apartment gets really quiet with no computers running…

Share This

ok ok, Apple isn’t suing itself, but AppleCorp (The Beatles) is suing Apple Computers. Apparently The Beatles won 80 million when Apple ventured into the music industry. And now with the iPod and iTunes, looks like the Beatles are going after them again for breach of contract. Interesting stuff. Fox News article here.

Share This