Tag Archive: stupidity

Obvious travel mug advice

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Fri. October 3, 2008

I was in a rush to leave the office to make an appointment. I grabbed the lid to my travel mug, screwed it back on top of the mug, stuffed it into my bag and started heading out. After a while I started feeling a little dampness on my body. I was in a bit of panic trying to figure out where that was coming from. I finally found out that it was coming from the fact that the bottom of my bag was damp.

See, apparently, prior to putting the lid on my travel mug and stuffing it into my bag, it’s entirely a good idea to make sure that the mug doesn’t contain any liquid in it.

Dork!

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Cracked mirror

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Sat. September 27, 2008

I’ll save y’all from another post on running for now–there’ll be plenty of time for that tomorrow. I’m trying to conserve my energy (such as it is) so when my mother asked me to go with her to Walmart to show her how to work that digital picture machine I was kind of put off. It was raining so I parked in a garage area with some cover overhead. Spots were few and far between, so I eventually settled for a spot next to a concrete pillar. It was a tight fit, but I made it in.

At Walmart we chose the photos and submitted them for developing. I swear, my mother would be so capable of doing these on her own if she’d only show some interest in learning, you know? Anyway, we had an hour to kill so I just wandered around the mall. After what seemed like an eternity of just aimlessly wandering from store to store we met back in Walmart. I was tired and kind of hitting some low-level energy levels. I thought about that and found it to be extremely odd because I’m usually still all right midday. Instead though, I was irritable and just wanted to be back at home curled up in bed. We were supposed to head to the supermarket after but my mother decided that we should just go home. I guess my mood was pretty obvious. Weeell…that can’t be helped. I’m not about to start masking everything now.

Aaaanyway.

We got in the car and I started backing out. I was thinking about how shitty I was feeling. I turned over to my right and started turning. Suddenly, we were both startled by this loud crack. What the fuck?! My side mirror caught the pillar that I had parked beside and completely broke off. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. I mean, it was a bit past noon on a Saturday. Would people be available at such a time to replace the thing right away? I needed to take my car downtown to the race. My mind was being pulled in so many directions. I was freaking out.

I got home and started calling several GM dealerships. I finally found one that would take me, but they were closing in an hour so I had to rush over. I actually took my car on the highway. I basically stayed in one lane the whole time just to minimize the risk of anything else bad happening. Occasionally I’d look at the broken mirror expecting to see behind me but of course I couldn’t see anything–it’s such an odd feeling.

Anyway, $275 later all is well and everything is fixed. I need to take a nap to get my stress levels back to normal levels. Enough is enough, damn it.

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After hours

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Sat. September 6, 2008

It is quite interesting to see what effects come as a result of being at work for way too long. When night falls and you’re still in the office, guards are dropped and civility goes out the window. I had a late shift last night. Even though I was there until past midnight, I was fortunate in that I basically had a regular 8 to 9 hour work day. The PM and the tech lead though were there since morning and had probably put in a good 16 hours each. I know I was going a little bit loopy–I can only imagine that they were feeling far less than fresh.

Last night we worked hard and we got a lot accomplished. At the same time we were also boisterous and vulgar–far more than decorum would dictate during business hours. Frankly, seeing those sides to my colleagues really fleshes them out. I mean, they’re not just people that you only see for 8 hours during your day. No: they’re also human, with limitations and breaking points where sanity goes out the bloody window. These are personal dimensions that I never really spent a long time considering. Similarly, how often do they get to see my other sides to my personality other than my usual brooding emo side?

“emoemoemo”

Not that I want to spend many late nights at work like I did yesterday, but seriously, doing it once in a while makes for a more interesting job.

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My temporary mental lapse

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Tue. April 29, 2008

I don’t want to say that the differing work hours are messing with my circadian rhythms because it’s only been one night thus far. However, I think something is up. This morning as well yesterday morning I woke up at my usual time, had breakfast, puttered around for a bit before getting this uncontrollable urge to go back to sleep. So, both times I headed back to the bed and passed out for another 3 or 4 hours. I don’t think it’s entirely healthy because each time I woke up from that sleep period I felt groggy like I had a hangover or was recovering from jet lag. I haven’t been feeling well so it could all be tied together. All weekend I was sneezing and feeling generally congested. Those symptoms went away, but I was left with a general uneasiness. I think I just need to get out into the sunlight and expend some energy.

It’s hard to be on the ball in this state. Yesterday I was feeling especially brain dead. I recall going up to the sink at work and grabbing for the non-existent hot water handle. Now, the handle’s been broken for weeks. I knew that. I saw the missing handle and yet, I still grabbed for it, felt air, and wondered what the heck was going on. Apparently I left my intelligence at home.

It’s not like I could have called in sick–we’re in a period of time where you better be damn well sick if you’re going to miss a monitoring shift. I wasn’t hacking or drippy–just mentally gone. That’s not a good enough excuse, really. It kind of makes me think about corporate culture tends to cultivate this type of super-heroism. It’s not uncommon for people who should be in bed to actually come into work anyway all in the name of productivity. From one point of view it’s sort of admirable. However, as it happens, that person often ends up infecting other colleagues causing even more problems. How is that helpful at all?

In my case, last night it seems that my temporary retardation did have an effect. When I came in today I heard news that there was a problem with one of the graphs indicating an issue that one of my colleagues had to fix. I took a look and it seemed like the problem started all the way back to 6PM last night. It took my a few moments before I realized that that was during my shift. I should have noticed the issue and raised a red flag or two. However, I was caught up with a bout of momentary stupidity to do anything about it. I swear, I was checking out the graphs and didn’t really spot the issue at all. I was aware enough to be able to report other issues…but not that important one. That’s one of our essential jobs during this monitoring period: watch the graphs! I was watching, but not comprehending, I guess. Luckily the site wasn’t down or anything like that. Rightfully so. I was actually placing orders on the site and nothing seemed out of the ordinary, so lucky there. I guess everyone is also fortunate that I wasn’t put in charge of operating heavy machinery. I spoke with my PM and everything seems alright. I’m a little bit better off today, but that might just be because I’m increasing my vigilance to not have a repeat of yesterday.

Oh man. What the heck is going on with me?

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An $18.5K mistake

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Sat. April 19, 2008

Jesus. Someone’s head need to roll for this one.

I haven’t gone out shopping for a few weeks now so I thought it’d be good to trawl through the mall and see what I could come up with. I picked up a pair of shorts at the GAP. At the cashier I pulled out my debit card, had it swiped and proceeded to punch my numbers in. Moments later I got a notice that the transaction was declined. Strange. So the cashier swiped it again and I punched in my PIN with a little extra care. Again, it came back declined. I thought, “Whatever…” and just pulled out my Visa. When it came time to sign, as I hovered the special pen above the electronic signing thing, the screen proceeded to write something in the box even though the pen made no contact with the screen. What the heck? I tried writing in the air, and it dutifully mimicked my movements. That doesn’t even make sense! Maybe I was transmitting some weird aura through the pen. Ha! Apparently I can channel my energy through a stick.

Well, eventually we got the transaction done. Due to the freakiness with the signing thing, I chalked the debit issue up to a faulty machine. I ventured over to a branch of my bank though to just make sure nothing kooky with my card was going on. I got there and swiped my card. When I entered my PIN everything turned out alright. So hey, I just left and went about my shopping duties.

Over at Old Navy I found some khakis and decided to try paying for it my debit once more. They had the same type of machine I saw at the GAP (no surprise since they share a parent company). I swiped and put in my PIN, but once again I was declined. Now I was worried. Willing to blame the machine type I went to HMV, picked up a few CDs and tried to use my debit card. Again, I was declined. The keypad indicated that I had insufficient funds. The keypad was different from the other two places so I knew that this was serious.

I hauled ass back over to the bank and had someone check my account. The teller told me that I currently had a negative balance. What the hell?!!!! She asked if I made a cheque for around $20K to someone. I responded with an emphatic “hell no!” My mind started going through various scenarios as to why something like this was happening. Was I being defrauded? Did someone hack into my account? I was in a panic.

Oh, then I realized that I had written cheques for $2067 or so for the condo upgrades. I wondered if it was related. The teller came back with (probably) a superior. They came with a print out of the cheque that was cashed in. There was nothing wrong with my cheque. Apparently though, someone made an egregious data entry mistake. Instead of inputting that $2067 should be taken out of my account, they input $20607.

Bloody HELL. That’s a mistake worth $18.5K. Obviously that’s money I simply don’t have. As a result, that mistake send me into overdraft. I was unbelievably frustrated at that point. Unfortunately for me, they said that the mistake was something that could only be rectified directly at my home branch. My home branch has horrible hours and is only next open at 10 am on Monday. So, I’m stuck waiting on this ridiculous issue for 2 days until I can go in person.

When I got home, I tried calling customer service, but they told me the exact same thing–I had to go to my branch. Damn it, damn it, damn it. Something like this should never have happened. Everyone agreed with me on that point. However, now that it’s done, it’s simply ridiculous that I have no other avenues to get the situation rectified. Instead, I have to inconvenience myself by missing a few hours work to get them to fix their mistake. Maaaaan. What the hell is with that?

Right now, I’m trying to stay relatively calm because really there’s no point in expending energy on it since there’s nothing I can do. It’s just hard to not worry about it. I’m the type of person that keeps a close watch over my balances. I try to keep things under control. So it’s really killing me that it’s out of my hands for now. Well, I guess when I come in on Monday I can see if they can provide some sort of compensation for such a stupid mistake (where are the damn checks and balances?). However, I certainly won’t hold my breath. Still: I want justice! :x

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Confession of an iPod murderer

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Fri. January 18, 2008

I’m not sure how to take this. Maybe my occult powers are growing. I say this in jest, but there’s some other evidence for this which I might delve into in a later entry. Or perhaps I just subconsciously fulfilled my inner desires.

Well, last night, I was perusing eBay for batteries. I saw an 850mAh battery which was minutes away from closing. I’d forgotten how powerful my current battery was so I wasn’t sure just how 850 would compare. Instead of ordering, I decided to have a look. I brought out my mini screwdrivers and opened up the sucker like I did in April 2006. I popped out the board and saw that it was a 750mAh battery. Nice! The 850mAh would be an improvement. So, I was getting ready to place a $1 bid on the battery. Before I did so I started putting the iPod together again. As much as it was easy popping the board out, putting it back in proved to be a little bit more difficult. Something was getting caught, preventing the board and components from sliding back in easily. Damn. So I looked around my chair for something to stick in there to push the board down while I slid it in. I didn’t find anything too handy except for a nail clipper with a small knife attachment. I told myself that I was just going to be careful and use it. So, I stuck it in the case and pushed the board down.

Unfortunately for me, I saw a bright flash of light or two from the case. Oops.

I was able to slide it in. When I closed it up, I noticed that the only way I could turn it on was by squeezing the top and bottom of the unit. I probably don’t have to say this…but that’s not how to properly operate the unit. When I did get it to turn on I noticed that the click wheel was no longer responsive. After a few more squeezes, the iPod refused to stay on at all.

Dead. I murdered my iPod. So apparently I got my wish. In all seriousness, I wasn’t intending for it to go out this way. As my friend pointed out to me last night:

(10:45 PM) H.Z.: dude why’d you do that? You gotta stop pretending you love engineering.

Indeed.

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Quota of stupid

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Fri. November 30, 2007

Ugh. Sometimes I can be dense.

Day’s just started for me and I’m already dangerously close to my daily quota of “stupid.”

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Lost fly button

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Sun. September 23, 2007

You know how I can tell that I’ve been ridiculously tired today? I just found out that I’ve been wearing my pyjama pants inside out for half the day. I only found out when I went to the bathroom and searched for the button on fly only to find that it wasn’t there.

Precious. Sleep.

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