A defensive move...

This is what I do in the morning:

1. Turn off the alarm that I set for 6:30 just so I can be happy I don't have to get up at 6:30.
2. Go back to sleep.
3. Turn off the alarm that I set for 7:00 just so I can enjoy not getting up at 7:00.
4. Go back to sleep.
5. Throw the bitey cat off the bed a few times.
6. Get up.
7. Stagger to the kitchen. Feed the cats.
8. Stagger outside with the dogs and sit on the concrete in the backyard while they do their thing (because if I don't go outside with them, they run out the door, do a u-turn and come back inside, and then have accidents in the house).
9. Come back inside with the dogs and feed them.
10. Slowly wake up.
11. Get dressed and walk the dogs.
12. Take a shower and get ready for work.

Note that at no time before step 10 is there anything like "Brush my hair" or "Become presentable". That's because I live alone in a house and I have a fence surrounding my backyard, so nobody has to know that I just got up a 9am, or that I'm looking like the creature from the black lagoon when I take the dogs outside.

However, this week my neighbors were having their roof redone. So step 8 1/2 was: "Wave to the roofers as I take the dogs back inside."

Clearly I need a higher fence.

Rich Inner Life. Really.

I was finishing my weekly trip to the best supermarket ever, and the checker asked me if I did anything fun this weekend.

So I tried to remember what I did for the past two days, and the first thing that came to mind was that I mowed the lawn. And while I was mowing the lawn, I was trying to track down the source of the "la la la" song that was stuck on repeat in my head.

About two mower-widths into the lawn, I realized that it was the song that the Smurfs sang as they went about doing whatever it was that Smurfs did. (Jojo the Enforcer watched the Smurfs when she was little -- I saw a lot of the episodes because I was nearby.)

Then I thought about Gargamel for a while and wondered what exactly it was that he did. I think he was an evil sorcerer or something. (Imagine that interview: "Describe a problem you faced and what you did to solve it." Given the number of episodes where Papa Smurf outwitted Gargamel, I can only imagine that Gargamel would have a hard time answering that question.)

Then I tried to figure out what exactly the Smurfs actually did, other than get into trouble. I could do that job. Except I'm not blue. But wouldn't that be discrimination?

And these thoughts carried me through mowing and edging the lawn.

So all this was going through my head as I was standing at the checkout counter and I finally told her I didn't do anything all weekend...

Great Job

Because I know how much everyone loves the ongoing saga (and also so everyone is in the loop when I become unemployed for such a long time that I need to move in with someone), I offer you all the latest in my attempt to get my current job:

After a suitable pause to allow everyone in the entire chain of command to laugh about the automatically rejected application, I was told to fill out the on-line application again. But first, SomeGuyWhoWon'tBeNamed had to reopen the job since HR had already closed it. Then I had to create another login since you can only apply for a specific job once. And then I had to answer all the questions again.

When you answer the question "Are you willing to relocate?" with "No" (since there was no "Hell no" option), why would it then force you to answer "What is your first choice of location?" and also "What is your second choice of location?"? It wouldn't even let me make the same choice for both.

So, there we have it, everything was all submitted. Again.

And then it was automatically rejected. Again.

However, it turns out that SomeGuyWhoWon'tBeNamed was able to unreject the rejection somehow. So then we had the interview. We'll just say that between the attention-deficit challenged pair of us, half of the questions asking about my current boss, SomeGuyWhoWon'tBeNamed needing to write down every answer at the speed of a cold tortoise, me having no idea how to answer any of the questions, and SomeGuyWhoWon'tBeNamed telling me every time that I did come up with an answer that there was a better answer, the interview just confirmed my feelings that I am unemployable.

The technical part went better, which is funny because that's where I really don't know anything unless I can google it.

Anyhow, as I was lying in bed on Friday morning, the HR person called to set up the screening interview. Because why would we do anything in the proper order? Unfortunately, the cats took the phone ringing as a sign that it was time to loudly complain about the lack of food. It's always very professional to have multiple cats howling in the background as you answer the phone.

So, yeah, I have the screening interview tomorrow.

I'm pretty sure I can retire on my savings if I move to Nepal.

(Edited to hide the pseudonym of SomeGuyWhoWon'tBeNamed who "values his lifelong position here".)

Unprepared

Every once in a while I realize that I missed some important class in becoming an adult. For instance, I've lived in this house almost ten years, and for ten years I've been meaning to buy a kitchen table. I still don't have a kitchen table.

I have a picture in my head of the type of table I want (rectangular, all wood, one solid piece, square legs), but as to how to find that sort of thing, I have no idea. So I just don't have a kitchen table.

I have a couch that is pretty much the definition of a bio-hazard. It was mostly okay when I got it (from my brother) but it was already at least ten years old at that point. I've had it another ten years, and a few of those years the couch served as the dog bed for the blind, occasionally-incontinent wonder dog. Scooter has also had his way with that couch. I don't sit on that couch. It's just taking up space in the living room. But buying a new couch and getting rid of the old one requires a level of planning that I just don't possess. That was in the Becoming An Adult 101 class as well.

I have a television that I haven't plugged in for three years. I never bought a digital converter box, so even if I wanted to use it I couldn't. I'd throw it out or take it to e-waste, but I can't lift it, so it will sit in the (unused) entertainment center with the (unused) DVD player and (unused) stack of CDs until either the house burns down or someone else moves in.

Is this why people get married?

I Love 'em Like Brothers

Rvan and Jeff were in Texas at some management meeting earlier in the week (I know, the fact that they sent Jeff to one of these things is funny all by itself), which gave Rvan and his boss and her boss yet another chance to giggle about the fact that HR rejected my application.

Jeff won his own heavy glass weapon award for complaining the most. Or maybe it was for outstanding leadership. We'll just say it's for something I'll never be qualified for.

One of the highlights of Jeff's trip was spending too much time in the hot tub and then realizing the next morning that he didn't know where his (only pair of) shoes were. Luckily the hotel staff kept better track of his stuff than he did.

In the meantime, Eric has been trying to tell me the joys of the Korean soap operas dramas that he's been watching lately. Apparently it's just bad luck to be a cute, non-obnoxious child in a Korean drama. Also, the suitable male doctor in the love triangle ("and there's always a love triangle") never gets the girl.

Eric told his Korean friend what he was watching and her response was "You should come to Korea and watch the dramas with the rest of the grandmothers."

You have to love stuff like this.

It may not be a coincidence...

I spent about five hours implementing a Rube Goldberg-esque solution to the problem of Microsoft Outlook lacking features developed in the 80s, so while my brain was relaxing I noticed something interesting on Facebook...

In the right sidebar (which I usually don't even look at), it has two pages recommended, the first of which is "Dancing". Now I'm not really sure why I would "like" a page for something so generic as dancing, but apparently almost 12,000,000 people have. Whatever, I thought, some people will "like" anything.

Directly below it was the "Sponsored" section with an ad from Starbucks, home of the "nothing under five hundred calories" drink. I haven't been to a Starbucks in probably about two years -- I don't really drink coffee and I found everything they sold to be overpriced (okay, fine) and too sweet. It was that latter bit that really blows my mind. I've had three boxes of Good & Plentys in the last week, so clearly a little processed sugar doesn't bother me, but every time I've had food from Starbucks I've taken a few bites and thought "wow, this is too sweet even for me". (And then, I'll be honest, I've finished it anyhow because that's what I do, but still.)

Anyhow, over 28 million people have "liked" Starbucks.

That pretty much explains a lot of things...

Soon the CEO will be calling...

In case I didn't believe that the whole world was conspiring to laugh at me already:

Today my boss (Rvan) got to chuckle with his boss' boss about the fact that my application to be hired for the job I already do was rejected by HR.

Paranoid? Me?

Never.