Afterwards, Coach and I talked for a good half-hour about everything else going on. Most of that conversation will have to stay completely off-the-record, but I’m feeling like we have a good shot as an independent. I’m hopeful.

As we left, I thanked Coach for his time and he thanked me for mine. “I wish I had 2,000 guys like you,” he said.

“I don’t know about that, Coach. That might get out of hand.”

“Well, you’d probably start something.”

“They couldn’t throw us all out at once, Coach.”

He laughed, and we walked to our cars.

Me: “Yeah, I have like five.”

George: “No wonder you vote Democrat!”

Me: “I own Macs, I grow a beard, I love my TiVo, and I drive a Subaru. Damn straight I voted for Obama.”

Tommy: “You forgot to mention that you’re a Methodist.”

To be clear, I don’t consider myself a Democrat. I’m slightly left of center these days, but I would vote for a moderate Republican—though those are becoming a dying breed.

Your narrator walks downstairs, aiming for a mid-afternoon pick-me-up from the vending machine. Arriving at the foot of the stairs, he sees a test rig surrounded by five people.

Co-worker, known for droll humor and dry wit: “It’s not rocket science.”

Narrator [hitches up belt]: “Well, that’s what I went to school to do.” [pause] “What are y’all testing?”

Co-worker: “How many people we can get to stand here, watching the computer.”

Narrator: “What’s your goal?”

Co-worker: “Eight is a successful test.”

Narrator: “Well, I’m gonna fuck it up and walk away now. Bye!”

The narrator retrieves his quarry and returns to the scene, finding a sixth hanger-on standing near the test rig. “Seven!” The narrator turns to head back up the stairs, and seeing a co-worker, makes an about-face.

“EIGHT!”

Exeunt.

B: “I … didn’t know you needed to take it.”

A [walking disgustedly away from B's office]: “You’re supposed to remember everything for me!”

B: “I … wasn’t aware that we were married.”

A: “My husband can’t remember his own name most of the time.”

A [pauses, then returns to B's office]: “Everyone has two spouses: their real spouse, and their work spouse. Now, around here, the ratios are such that some of the folks are, well … gay. But you’re my work spouse.”

Names omitted to protect the innocent and provide general humor value if the guilty ever end up reading this on the Web.

“Well, you know, I like that, but I always think whatever I said is hilarious, so I just go ahead and laugh. I can’t keep a straight face.”

Misty: “But you are hilarious.”

“Oh, whatever.”

If you don’t think I’m funny, I do! In fact, I’m frickin’ hilarious … to me.

Today, I crave it.

At lunch, we talked about a variety of weird subjects—after all, this was a table full of nerdy engineers. But I think I out-nerded them all. The subject of earthquakes came up [in the context of a what-to-do-in-an-earthquake discussion about some safety slides that NASA/MSFC had circulated, because we're in such a dangerous zone here in Alabama ], and someone talked about the New Madrid earthquake. I then brought up Kentucky Bend, and then …

“How the hell do you know this stuff?”

“I read Wikipedia late at night when I can’t sleep.”

“And you tell me that I need a hobby?”

Heh. I come by it honestly. Dad used to read the encyclopedia as a kid. [So did I.]

Response sent: “3 parts vodka and 1 part triple sec to 5-6 parts OJ”

Response considered: “Cold-worked stainless steel and a petroleum-based polymer for the grip.”

Me, I’m working in the morning and am still a bit dehydrated from being sick, otherwise, well, I might have to fix myself a drink …

This morning, I responded, “Puddintane! Ask me again, I’ll tell you the same.”

There was a brief delay, and then everyone laughed. But I could tell that they really wanted to throw shit at me.

I have considered other options:

• “James Tiberius Kirk, captain of the starship Enterprise.”
• Various politicians. Were I Frank Caliendo, I’d do it with impressions.
• “Who has two thumbs and doesn’t give a crap?” Only to see if someone responded, “Bob Kelso“.

The nuclear option is, of course, “YOUR MOM.”

Some days, it’s a wonder that they put me in positions of responsibility.

Me: “Excellent! Just the kind of data that we need.”

Co-op: “How do you want me to organize this?”

Me: “Well, we need weights and part numbers.”

Co-op: “We’ve also got serial numbers …”

Me: “Good point. Just … get started with the data entry, and the organization will come to you. Promise.”

And that’s the truth: faced with a blob of data that you know only in part, you’re best to get it all entered and then figure out how to make it pretty. You could spend a half-hour with a plan for all this, and something on page 47? Gonna kick your ass. Better to just get started.

[And now my co-op is going to see this on Facebook, since I import notes there, and she'll know that I care. 'Cause I do. 'Cause she's kicking ass. I'm just trying not to tell her too much so she won't get complacent. ]

Me: “Juuuuust like I like it.”

P: “Maybe it’s because …”

Me: “I have a dark personality?”

P: “Maybe that’s it.”

Me: “You’re just now figuring this out?!”

Ain’t gonna lie. Mood improves with coffee, though. The sad thing is that I’m maximally productive at some level of irritation. The trouble is keeping from being so irritated that I go back down the curve …

Me: “Honestly, pretty shitty. I spent all weekend tangling with my Web server and got three hours’ sleep.”

Boss: “I’m not really sure that it’s worth the time that you put into it.”

Me: “Trust me, on days like today, I wonder about that myself.”

Me: “You’re just jealous. I’m Twittering that we’re playing with the JesusPhone.”

YOU HAVE BEEN SERVED

Mind you, below that it said “BY: $cashier”, but … too funny. I turned it around and showed Stephen, and he got a laugh out of it as well…

“Ooooooh, pretty!”

“I can tell you’re checked out of this meeting. Why don’t you just go ahead and leave?”

“You got an iPhone?! We need to get $co-worker in here … we were talking about them just last week.”

“Yeah, Geof claims that his Treo died. I don’t believe him.” [said as I walked out of a meeting to answer a call from my business manager ... tried not to flip my colleague the bird for pulling my leg]

“It’s just too much fun, isn’t it?”

“So, has that gotten you any babes yet?” [my boss]

They did.

I’m pretty speechless, other than to note that, well, I’m quite straight.

“Ohhhh, you’re smart.”

[phone rings]

Me: “Hey, Chris.” [ohnosecond] “Wait a minute, I don’t have caller ID. I have no idea if it’s Chris or not.”

Chris: “You don’t? Well, it is me.”

Me: “What the. That’s freaky.”

Chris: “That’s scarier than you normally are.”

Six days to vacation.

Subject: [Upcoming] (username redacted) sent you a note!

The note reads:

The address:
(address redacted) that’s under the name “Grace Free Evangelical Church is WRONG. The church at that address is my church, which is (church name redacted to protect innocent parishoners). Please get your facts straight, and please correct this. I don’t know why its saying I’m sending this from the email address “(redacted)”. That email has been deactived. Please email me back at (redacted, although I want to subscribe her to a lot of funky porn spam). Thank you.

Ummm … huh? Okay, so I made a mistake. Actually, I copied another person’s mistake—this was a venue for one of the artists for whom I enter data into Upcoming, and apparently, things changed, the address was wrong, or something. But anyway. Two things immediately struck me:

1. The tone. This young woman was angry that I had the wrong church at the right address. It’s a mistake—simply ask me to correct it and go on with life.
2. The utter lack of helpfulness. There’s no URL for the venue–and given how Upcoming has gone in the .org–>Yahoo.com transition, it’s a bit harder to search anymore. If given the venue’s URL, I could probably knock this problem out in about 30 seconds. I wasn’t, and after five minutes of fruitless searching, I gave up. [The tone had a lot to do with that.]

Here’s my response:

Would you shoot me the URL to the venue you complained about? That’ll help me get it corrected in the system.

As for the facts, I entered them from an artist’s Web site as to where they indicated that the show would be held. I apologize if you were offended by this error, but I would urge you to look look at it from my end—by being so strident with your response, you give me very little incentive to fix it. That said, I want to get the right address for the actual venue, and while I’m at it, I’ll add in your church so that anyone else who tries to add a venue at that address will get an error in Upcoming’s system.

Ahhh, Christian kindness and charity. [I'm including my response here as a slight reproof for myself, because I certainly could have done a better job in my response.]

Redux, 20 Jun: I got a very polite and contrite reply. I’m satisfied, especially because I’ve lashed out at people unnecessarily, and heck … my OCD nature is to want such things right as well.

I didn’t get the hatch fully closed on my car afterwards, so when the kid came to the door with the note, my roommate said, “He was really nervous, but said that he saw the lights on in your car and thought you needed to know.” That was nice of him. In his place, I probably let me run the battery down. He was out there when I went out with my keys to firmly close the hatch, and he was extremely aplogetic.

Apparently I’m now 47. What’s next, me moving the neighbor kid’s basketball goal so his missed shots don’t hit my car?

That said, I really don’t want that. I’d rather passionately care and obsess about this stuff, waking up in the middle of the night thinking about stuff, than just punching a time clock.

If you find yourself in a dead end job, you’re probably wanting to switch chairs with me. I tell you this: each situation has significant negatives that turn that suck knob to 11.

[Of course, I'm an aerospace engineer working for what it largely a systems company these days.]

Note to self: awesome.

Back to braindumping. They’re supposed to close in five…

Edited to add: Then they brought me the leftover chili. I know what that was about: it was an effective attempt to hook me on their chili so I’ll buy it in the future.

This actually happened to me this morning. The discussion of whether Alabama should fire their coach went on for about three minutes, and, grinning, I finally piped up and said, “I’d like to note that I’m the only male in the room, and we’ve been talking football for the last five minutes.” We all broke up in laughter.

[Have I mentioned lately that I really genuinely like almost everyone I work with? That is so, so true of everyone in that room this morning. Good people who are very good at what they do---mostly, keeping me out of trouble.]