66 posts tagged “work”

Oh, I cannot stand when people are condescending!

I understand that I'm a total noob when it comes to engineering, but when it comes to doing my job, I am fairly decent at my work.  And besides, my age, gender, and relative lack of experience should not matter. I deserve respect!

I just got off the phone with someone who works in a governmental capacity.  We've been trying to set a meeting with him for a week now and he's been ignoring my attempts at contact.  Ever the persistent one, I gave him a call today and politely requested that we set a meeting with him.  He then launched into an explanation of why a meeting was not needed, very slowly and carefully, as if I were a six-year-old.

OOOOOOOOOOOOO that is one really good way to piss me off.  So, adopting his condescending tone, I explained exactly why we DID need a meeting. Maybe I should have stayed more professional but I was pissed!   I tried unsuccessfully for the next couple of minutes to get him into a meeting.  He said if my project managers wanted to talk about it, they could call him (!!!!!)  "Can we just stop by, informally?" I asked. Man, I know I was being annoying, but at this point, I didn't care. This guy was a prick and I didn't care anymore about being nice.  "They can stop by, but I may not be in," he said.  "They will have to make an appointment if they want to see me."  "Ok then," I said, "let's make an appointment then."  "This issue is non-negotiable," he said.  He does not want a meeting to discuss our side of the story. 

I thanked him for his time and after we hung up, I felt frustrated.  I moved up fairly fast within my project and have responsibilities a lot of EITs my age don't have. I guess I got used to being treated a certain way (i.e. respect) and when someone treats me like I just got out of school, it's frustrating. I suppose I could have handled the situation better, but man, he definitely instigated it.  I let my project manager know what happened. Maybe she will have more luck than I did (she's pretty fierce, I imagine that she will). 

. 

I do not like driving in the rain, in traffic.  This morning I had to head back downtown for the rescheduled meeting.  I left at 8:06, which was a mistake; usually, I can get downtown in 45 minutes with traffic and still make the meeting on time.  But this morning was just a clusterfuck. I didn't get to the downtown office until 9:20, and by then, the meeting was canceled (again) because another coworkers had been stuck on the same freeway was late just like me, and my project manager had to go to another meeting by then.  Sigh.  

Right now I am working on a massive Microsoft Project file for work.  I can't work off the originals since I don't have the program uploaded on my computer yet, so I'm working from scratch. I'm not sure how much of a benefit it is to start from scratch, but I can at least play around with the file a little more.

I am feeling better today. I am a tough cookie.

I am very tired. Lately I can't fall asleep unless it's past midnight. And last night my neighbors downstairs were slamming doors and walking loudly and God knows what else.  For once it didn't bother me, because I know that it's hard to gauge sometimes how loud I have the TV - maybe they hear my TV all the time and don't complain.  I ended up drifting off to sleep anyway and woke up this morning to head downtown for my 9:00 meeting. Except the meeting was canceled by email at 8:20, when I was still in the car, so I drove 45 minutes for nothing. Oh well.  Good driving practice, right? Right.

This weekend was fun.  I went with my friend Conrad to the haunted house and a movie on Saturday night.  It wasn't scary, of course, but they did a really good job with it.  There were two little kids in front of us freaking out.  Some guy dressed up as the dude from Texas Chainsaw Massacre started sniffing me too, which was kind of funny.  There were only 2 parts of the haunted house that were a little creepy. The first was when we were walking through what was supposed to be someone's living room, and this guy ran by in his underwear holding pictures.  You got the impression that he was a serial killer or pedophile or someone gross, and I found that part creepy.  Then we walked through this room where a bunch of fake meat was hanging, and they had the strobe lights going so you could barely see what was going on in front of you, and everything came in flashes.  That was a little creepy too.  But other than someone jumping out at me at the VERY END and making me jump, no thrills.
 
I have been trying to exercise more regularly lately.  Usually I only work out 2-3 times a week with a run, but I don't think that is enough. Not counting dancing, I worked out 4 times last week, so that is good. I had a really good run on Sunday.  It was just beautiful outside. I warmed up by walking about 1.75 miles listening to The Beatles, and then ran about another 4 miles afterward. My only mistake was I hadn't had anything to eat since I didn't want to be full while I ran, so I was completely starving by the end.  If I'd had something to eat, I think I may have been able to run longer.
I had a really good run yesterday as well.  I had been planning on sandbagging it, but we had to do relays with a partner. My partner ended up being one of the fastest girls in the group, so I was like, craaap I have to bring it.  I am nowhere near as good of a runner as she is, but I had to at least be respectable.  Our relays were 8 x 300 m.  It's all mental - 300 meters is just short enough for me to be able to run fast without feeling like I'm going to collapse.  I was doing pretty well until after the 6th one when my stomach was all, "Hey, so I'm kind of in pain."  "Shut up, stomach," I said to myself firmly.  "You only have two more left to go."  After the 7th lap, my stomach said, "OK LOOK, Jenny, I'm in pain.  Why don't we stop?  You can finish your lap later."  "Stop being a pussy," I retorted.  "You have only 300 meters left! That's less than two minutes out of your life. Woman up."  So I put on "All My Life" (seriously, Foo Fighters is my running soundtrack, especially for the end when I need to feel motivated - even if I'm tired, I'll just put on "All My Life" or "The Pretender" and feel like kicking so much ass).  I found myself running faster and faster, passing people up and sprinting towards the finish line.
 
"Daaaamn!" my partner said when I finished. "That was your fastest yet!" I hadn't been timing myself, but apparently I'd been running each lap faster and faster after the fourth lap, finishing lap #8 off at 1:12.  I felt really proud of myself and we talked for a bit afterward.  Then my stomach was all, "BITCH. I TOLD YOU. I AM IN PAIN. PAIN PAIN PAIN."  So the next ten minutes were rather painful, but other than that, I felt great with my run.
 
I want a nap. I am looking forward to this weekend.
 

Hola Voxers. I just haven't felt like writing anything. I dunno why. I don't think it's time for me and this blog to take a break just yet; I've had it for three years, so I've grown quite used to writing in it.  It's just my 'hood has become rather quiet as of late.  I like reading y'all's posts.  Update more.

This weekend was a good one.  Last weekend, when I was feeling pretty stressed out and antisocial, I was quite content with spending the whole weekend holed up in my apartment.  This weekend I would have gone crazy if I did that, so luckily there was a lot to do.  I went out to happy hour with some people from my running group on Friday and watched the UT/Tech game with them on Saturday.  Yesterday I saw The Informant! with Jared and Conrad, and went out to Souper!Salad! afterward. Remind me never to go out to that place again.  It's glorified dorm food and is nowhere worth the money.  Ugh. 

Yesterday I went for a long run because I'm trying to get my endurance back up.  My endurance is in a sad, sad place right now...I think my problem is more mental because I'm sure I have the physical capacity to run longer and faster than I am. I'm pretty embarrassed at how bad my running is now.  I ran for an hour, with a water break in the middle. It was a slow run though...my ankle muscles have been hurting me lately because I think I have the wrong form when I run sprints, and I pulled something.  It took a good 20-30 minutes for my muscles to stop hurting and for the endorphins to kick in.  I skipped my run today.  I dunno if that's good or not.

Sigh.  Well, I'm going to take a shower. Sometimes I wonder if I have insomnia because I just cannot get to sleep at a normal time...this weekend I went to bed at 4 for no reason.

I should be asleep right now. I have a dentist's appointment in the morning. Can't wait for that (sarcasm). 

Today was just a really good day. I've been keeping busy at work with my neverending real estate tasks and writing a report for the field work I did last week. I'm really enjoying working with the data.  I had a "math fail" moment yesterday which was really embarrassing.  I'd had a hard time solving this EASY problem while out in the field, and was determined to solve it yesterday for my data...it was so simple.  My only consolation is I was making it too complicated, but STILL NO EXCUSES. My master's degree should be revoked.  I realize that I miss the mental stimulation of doing math problems (I KNOW, WHAT?) so I need to keep my mind fresh by doing those.

I had CPR/First Aid Training today.  The instructor was really funny and kept the class interesting. I was CPR/First Aid certified like, ten years ago, so I paid attention.  I wonder if I would really remember all that information in an emergency, though. My brain is notorious for shutting down in emergency situations, so I don't know.  CPR seems pretty easy to remember.  I just hope I never have to use it, but if I do,  I hope I can be level-headed.  I just need to give myself more credit, perhaps.

I went back to my running group for the first time in a month.  I haven't been able to go all last month, what with being out of town, being sick, having Pat here, and other general excuses.  Here's the difference between running by myself and running with other people. I went on a run last Sunday and it wasn't great - I was slow, ran only for 34 minutes, and had incredibly sore legs the next day, like I'd run 15 miles. Granted, it was my first time back to running after a month, but still.  Today I planned on taking it easy, but other people were using me as their pacer.  They are probably my dad's age but I learned long ago that age has nothing to do with running, as some of the best and fastest runners I know are in their fifties (my dad included). Several of these runners are marathoners, so they could outrun me without any problem.  Since I'm competitive, there wasn't any way I was slowing down when I saw one of my past pacing buddies catching up with me. So after that, I resigned myself to the idea that I was running fast today and joined their group when they asked me to pace them.  They were a really nice group of people to run with and I was really grateful for the chance to run with them, and was humbled by their compliments (they nicknamed me "The Rabbit."  I'm not fast but hey, I'll take the compliments!)

It was funny because after the first running set I did with them, my stomach started hurting, as it does when I run faster than I'm used to.  But they were being so complimentary of me that I thought, I can't stop now. Suck it up, Jenny (and it's not like these were deathly abdominal pains - they were bearable). After the second set, my stomach hurt even more, but then other people were noticing my running and complimenting me on it.  So I definitely couldn't stop!  But what do you know, once I started running again my stomach pains went away.  Phew :)  I had a reputation to uphold.  Seriously, though, without the group, I would have defaulted into my old lady crawl. They definitely paced me and I hope I can run with them next week.  I'm pretty happy that I didn't lose all of my running speed in the month I haven't run...I heard it takes 6 weeks to lose your training, so I guess I hit it right before that crucial mark.

Ohhh and one more tidbit of great news - my friend can't go to the Them Crooked Vultures concert because of school, but Pat can! His prof will let him take the test early!  I was so elated to hear the news - it wouldn't have been the same without my concert buddy Pat there, especially since he's such a huge Dave Grohl fan.  Now he just has to clear it with our parents...lol.

Well, I need to head to sleep. I had Dr Pepper today (shh don't tell my mom that I relapsed), so I expect to wake up in the middle of the night gasping for air again.  I read more of my true crime novel again before sleep...usually that stuff doesn't affect me, but last night I kept on waking up.  Hehe.  Ok off I go, night y'all.     

I was in Dallas yesterday and today for field work.  The work there was pretty uneventful (other than being ridiculously hot, but welcome to Texas), but coming back sure made up for it!

My coworker and I were on the interstate near downtown, camping in the left lane and waiting out the traffic.  Suddenly, we heard a loud noise.  It took several seconds for me to register that the noise was the sound of a vehicle hitting ours.  "WHOA!" my coworker said.  Speechless, I watched the truck that hit us barrel down the left shoulder. 

My coworker stepped outside to look at the damage.  Very luckily, the sound was more dramatic than the actual damage - the left side mirror had been destroyed, but that's it.  With an accident that minor, there weren't any injuries.  I noticed that the truck had not pulled over to the shoulder.  "He's trying to run," I said.  I couldn't believe it.  For something as minor as hitting a side mirror, you're going to risk getting into so much trouble by running?  It made me mad.  After my accident in January 2008, I felt so guilty for totaling that guy's car and hurting his leg, even months and months after it happened. I can't imagine being so thoughtless to leave the scene of an accident. 

We searched through the lanes of traffic, but the car had disappeared. Then we saw him frantically trying to switch lanes to get to an overpass exit.  I was able to spot the car and got his license number. I guess my coworker didn't believe I had the right one, even as I was saying it out loud to myself, because he slowed down to make sure.  I caught a glimpse of the man as he was on the overpass. I have to admit I felt pretty triumphant as I looked at his face.  Haha, sucker. I got your license plate. 

We ended up having to call 911 to wait for an officer to come to the scene.  We found out afterward that there had been another vehicle hit by the same guy.  Here's what we think happened: the truck hit the first guy, damaging his bumper, and in a hurry to escape, he took the left shoulder as his route.  That's when he hit us.  The police officer said it would be hard to convict the guy since I was the only witness who had caught just a glimpse of his face (I admitted that I wouldn't be able to pick him out of a lineup).  But the police would be able to do an investigation on him. The officer was very nice.  The accident took an hour out of our trip.  It's weird, but I kind of had a feeling something like that would happen today.

Anyway, about an hour out of Dallas, my coworker took me up on my offer and let me drive. I'm not a fan of dual-cab trucks, especially in the dark, in areas where I had to drive close to the wall without a shoulder, and in the rain.  Oh, and all without the side-view mirror to check my blind spot. My coworker helped me with the blind spots, though, so that was good.  And luckily, it didn't start raining until the end.  We took a different road back to the office that had very limited visibility, and with the rain, it was hard for me to see at some points.  I was just so grateful to get home.

Back to the office tomorrow! Then I'm supposed to go swing dancing, and I can't flake out again.  So I need to rest up now.

I have to say, I rarely get emotional over news like this, but the release of the US journalists in North Korea actually made me a little teary.  I've been following the story for awhile and really feeling sad for them.  I've been away from the computer practically all day, so I found out just a couple of minutes ago.  I'm so, so glad to hear that this story has a happy ending. 

I'm back from my sampling trip.  Field jobs are always a lot of fun, and this one was not an exception.  The work was definitely tough, especially today - we had to sample wells at the bottom of a small landfill, which meant I had to haul 4-gallon buckets of the purged water up the steep slopes.  That was some work, let me tell you!  But I relish that stuff.  Somehow I managed to be the dirtiest one there; I'm such a boy. 

Yesterday was a long day - I was up at 5, and we left the City by 6 so we can travel to the site.  We worked until about 5:15 or 5:30.  I had plans to meet a friend but since he was moving in, I decided to get dinner with my coworkers since I was STARVING (this was 7:00).  We went to a sushi restaurant.  I made my selection in two minutes, which tells you how hungry I was, while my coworkers pored over the menu.  Our waitress abandoned us too, never coming back to get our order.  After about 10 or 15 minutes, I was starting to get more than impatient.  "Where is our waitress? We should go get another waiter," I said to one of my coworkers.  She looked at a passing waiter, then said, "Nooo," with an embarrassed face.  "Well, I don't care," I said, standing up.  "I'm hungry." I marched over to the bar and talked to the waiter, politely telling him our story.  He had hot miso soup and a salad for us in a minute.  My coworkers made fun of me after that - "Don't get in Jen's way when she's hungry."  DAMN RIGHT!

My friend picked me up at around 9:30, and I hung out with him, his family, and other friends while we put his apartment together.  I didn't get back to the hotel until about 12:45, but I had a lot of fun, so it was all worth it! :)

My dad got me addicted to a new game on Xbox. It is called 1 Vs. 100, and it's a trivia game.  It's SO addicting. My dad and I are especially competitive.  I won a round or two, and my dad told me I wasn't welcome home this weekend.  But then he won the last round, which was the hardest one! My Xbox is still broken so it is technically the only game I can play, since you can access it via the game lobby. 

Well, I'm wide awake for someone who only had 5 hours of sleep and worked all day...I'm going to go read and watch some True Blood before going to sleep.  That show is my new addiction.  It's totally vampire porn, by the way, but the story line is soooo good.  I watched like 9 episodes on Sunday.  I'm just about done with the first season.

Night y'all. 

And by memories, I mean "heat rash."

No, but really, my day was fun today.  Exhausting, very hot, but good. Geologists in our office have to travel a lot; I don't think I'd like to travel as much as they do, but I really enjoy field work.  You work longer hours (which means good overtime pay), you get to be messy and do cool stuff.  You always learn something, and there is always some new challenge that makes you think. I have nowhere near enough experience to come up with the solutions on my own, but it's good for me to see how my project managers are able to think on their feet.

We left our hotel at 6:30 and made it to our work site, near downtown, by 7.  Our subconsultant showed up shortly afterward.  He did not get on my good side. On our down time, he asked me what school I went to.  When I told him, he gave a really condescending laugh which pissed me off, but I let it go.  He was making a big deal about it and I just ignored him.  Then, I grabbed another granola bar because I was hungry.  "You're not one of those constant eaters, are you?" he said, and I swear, if there are any Office fans reading this, he reminded me of Todd Packer at that point.  "Why, do you have a problem with that?" I retorted, and he looked all shocked.  He immediately became a lot nicer and left me alone the rest of the day. I'm usually not that bitchy, but I was already annoyed at what a douche he was being about where I went to school at, and DAMN, CAN'T A GIRL EAT without people making comments?  He later picked up lunch for us, which got me on my good side again.

The site we were at was in an okay part of town, but once we went a couple of streets down...not so much.  My coworker was on the phone at one point and I had to go into a gas station.  This one guy told us to move the vehicle from where we were parking, and thinking that he was an employee, I moved the truck.  Then he went to sit in that spot, and I realized he was probably loitering.  He told me he wanted to talk to my coworker, but I just kind of ignored him and put on my bitch face to go into the gas station. When I came out, he kept trying to talk to me, but I ignored hm and kept walking.  He asked my coworker for money and lied and said that he had tried to help me with my things but that I told him no. We just got out of there because it wasn't a good spot. I drove the truck for a little but it was so big that I freaked my coworker out when we went through the drive-through (it was pretty narrow, and we all know how bad I am with narrow spots, as poor Pearl Jr. can attest). We switched spots and luckily I didn't have to drive anymore after that.

The work was really interesting. I liked sampling and for the morning part of the day, the weather was great because we were in the shade.  The afternoon got pretty bad though.  At one point, around 2, I was not doing great. I was getting tired and confused, and I felt my heart racing.  So I drank more fluids and really slowed it down. I probably should have gone to rest but I didn't want to look like a wimp since I was the only girl there. I'm such a hypocrite - I get on my brother's case for trying to be macho when we run in the heat, but here I was doing the same thing.

We left around 3, and I got to see how confusing downtown Dallas is, along with the crazy interstates there too. I would have been so lost if I were driving. I might have to go back up to that site by myself in a few weeks, so that's gonna be fun! Haha.  When I got home, I realized I have a wicked heat rash on my back and front. That's what I get for letting myself get overheated.

I'm exhausted, so I'm going to go rest. 

I've been putting all my mundane updates on Twitter, which is probably why I haven't written a real post in awhile. Guess I should get on to that.

Well, not tonight, because I'm in a hotel room! I found out last week that I had to do a field job in Dallas with two other coworkers. I was excited because it's been years since I've been to Dallas, and I was itching to do a little traveling.  I'm staying in a hotel in a suburb outside of Dallas (our work will take us near the downtown area tomorrow, should be interesting).  There's a theme park literally next door...the new Cowboys Stadium is close-by as well.  I got to see that, it was pretty cool.

The rest of this week has been pretty good so far. I should probably get to sleep soon...I need to be up early tomorrow, and since I never get to sleep before 11:30 anymore, I'll probably be hating my life tomorrow (I need to be up by 5:40, boo).

Hope you all are having a good week.

I was watching The Wedding Singer tonight. I must have seen that movie forty times now but it's one of my favorites.  I love it. Thanks to that movie, I can't hear the song "Do You Really Want to Hurt Me?" without breaking up in laughter. (I was also watching for inspiration for our 80's theme party two weeks from now.)

So, I've had to work from home the past two afternoons to get my A/C fixed.  (I say "work" but it's incredibly hard to work from home without getting distracted...I'm going to take 3 hours or so of sick time just to set things straight. I'm pretty conscientious about charging my time).  Now, friends, I am not mechanically inclined.  I did not inherit that gift from my dad. If not for my dad, who was an engineer down in the engine room back in his Navy sailor days, I would be completely clueless.  I had two different repairmen, the first who was clearly in a big hurry and said I was low on freon...except my unit kept on dripping. My dad said this meant something was wrong with the condenser or compressor, but the maintenance man didn't entertain my questions.  "Don't you feel the difference already?" he asked, trying to shut me up.  "No," I replied.  But the person today took his time.  So far the leak has stopped but we'll see. My dad is convinced my A/C unit will go out soon.  Hopefully it will happen when Patrick is here next week (hehe), so he can be at home when the repair guy shows up (I dislike having people in my apartment when I'm not here, and try to avoid it as much as I can).

This weekend was really good. I went to a friend's birthday party on Saturday. The introvert in me is always a little unsure about attending parties where I know only one person...but this ended up being a lot of fun. There were cool people there. We are all swing dance nerds, so there was a lot of conversation about dancing...I even got a dance in, lol.  I was exchanging numbers with someone at the end, and this really drunk girl spotted us across the room and said, "WOO! Go ::insert guy's name here::, she's hot!"  Haha my face was red.  Then on Sunday, I ran for 40 minutes in the heat (like around 3 o'clock...I know, I'm crazy) because I'm trying to get acclimated to it.  Then I dashed home, cleaned up, and headed to my aunt's and uncle's, who live about 30 minutes away from me.  I had a good time and was happy to see them and my adorable twin cousins (who are going to kindergarten this fall. OMG. I remember waiting in the hospital when they were born.  When did time pass by so quickly?)  Joshua reminds me a lot of my brother and me when we were little.  We were pretty energetic kids...I think Joshua would make a good runner when he gets to be a little older.  (Maybe that's why my dad took me running all the time...hmm).  My new baby cousin, Eliana, is supposed to be born the day after my birthday.  I'm pretty excited to meet her.  She'll be my...35th cousin? I think? I lost count.

Yesterday was good.  I talked to my project manager and received unsolicited feedback...very good! She said I'm doing a really good job, and that I have natural management skills (me? lol).  I was really happy to hear that.  Then I went for a good run.  It was a partner relay...5 x 1.5 lap sprints.  It was tough.  My partner is a good runner so I didn't want to be lame and slow.  The first two intervals I was doing pretty well, hitting 2.5 minutes.  But I got kind of tired by the 3rd lap, so after that I slowed down to 2:45 minute intervals.    

My mom told me that she found old family friends on Facebook.  My mom was good friends with an Italian woman who had three daughters, Jessica, Laurie, and Jennifer. I have such good memories of hanging out at their house in Virginia when I was little, so I was really happy to find them on Facebook.  The girls all speak Italian.  Three of my Italian aunts, Zia Lucia, Zia Tonia, and Zia Daniela, are on Facebook.  And some of my Italian cousins - Diego, Stefania, Sabrina, Antonio, Rossanna, Antonio, Amanda, Tony, and Noemi-are on Facebook (you know how everyone is named "Nick" in My Big Fat Greek Wedding?  In my family, it's like that, except with the name Antonio).  So that means I really have to crack down on my Italian, because it's embarrassing when my cousin wants to talk to me, and I can't understand what she's saying because she's using some slang version of "What are you doing?" or whatever.  I'm the only one in that whole group who doesn't speak it fluently and I'm ashamed of it. It's not my mom's fault because she certainly tried...it's just my lazy self.

Wow, it's already 11. Time to get ready for sleep.