Well now, I hope I haven't lost too many readers after last night's little walk in the moonlight and lighthearted reprieve from the usual sass. Today, it's back to the normal constipated grunt and grind (it's true - I was frustratingly denied my recommended daily servings of roughage today after my aunt, who tragically can't really tell the difference between her ass and her left hand, threw out the entire bag of fresh plums I'd picked off the tree at my parents' place this weekend because she'd taken a single bite out of one soft, shriveled-looking one that I guess had a fermented taste, which obviously meant the entire bag was bad. I guess I really can't expect much from a woman who has also taken the greenest, most obviously unripe apricot out of a bag full of otherwise gorgeous ripe ones, taken a huge bite out of it, and then complained "aieee! they're so sour!" I'd take this opportunity to draw out some long-winded metaphor about prejudice and life-lessons, except for the fact that we all know "long-winded" is an honor best left to Le Petomane). Some people...
And so, today, fueled by raging intestinal discomfort, as well as a week's worth of emotional constipation, I arrived at my office to find that the IT guys finally delivered my computer, complete with internet lockdown! Of course, despite the various inconveniences of internet castration, I was still comforted by the fact that they had, in fact, simply locked down the entirety of the office (or, at least my group), and had *not* targeted my supervisor's computer in specific (which would have been far more disconcerting, as I live in fear of the event that he comes back from his business trip, only to find something horribly amiss with his computer, or worse, with an email in his inbox complaining that *he'd* been responsible for the renegade internet activities from his machine. Boy I'd sure get my rump-on-a-stick for that one. Let's all take this moment to pray for me, shall we?).
While we're on the topic of guilt, as it seems to be this week's Plague theme, allow me to detail the extent to which my company is butt-tight. Don't get me wrong, I've been treated, for the most part, exceedingly well as an intern, but my company is the kind who's so money-conscious that you feel guilty for crapping on company time. Our CEO is not only office-legendary, but legendary amongst the industry for being the cheapest man alive - the extreme delay in the approval for the order of my computer being but one example of his epic cheapness. To summarize in a few words, for all the money this man retains and clutches for dear life, it's a wonder he doesn't shit gold bricks as a result.
As I continued my constipatorial escapades throughout the day, I found myself having to exercise more and more self-restraint in order to prevent myself from throttling the perpetually peppy new lab technician who has just learned how to solder and giggles and talks to herself and her boards every time she makes a mistake. I shit you not - how could I without my morning roughage? A lab technician who doesn't know how to solder. Wow, holy shit, forgive my train of thought for derailing once again, but I just took another look at that website, and the main page is pretty awesome too (this is really turning out to be a poop-filled entry, isn't it?).
In any case, to return to the topic of the untrained technician - I wonder just exactly how many companies these days engage in the practice of "pity hiring," because it certainly can't be any ordinary circumstance in which a person lacking the only skill necessary in his or her line of work gets hired for that particular job.
Now of course, you understand, that in my ever-agitated state, soldering at a bench with a peppy chick who wouldn't shut up would certainly be the worst-case scenario - but for the fact that in the few minutes she took *in between* the giggling to breathe, she was failing to mercifully drown out the drivel coming from *another* intern who was wasting time chatting up the head technician with her usual crock of shit about child-raising, marriage, careers, and "putting yourself in the best position" (to which I'm ever inclined to reply "and I take it yours is on your knees?"). For flux sake, I wish her supervisor had figured out *something* to give her to work on while he was out of town - both my supervisors are out of town and you don't see me sitting around voicing my views on Honey Bunches of Dead Babies (though, all things considered, it's probably wiser that I keep busy and keep my mouth shut, lest I get fired for "expressing negativity at the office").
The impromptu "intern lunch" organized by a particularly chipper intern provided some welcome relief - in more ways than one, as the chosen dining establishment turned out to be a salad buffet. The lunchtime crowd proved to be an extremely fortunate circumstance, as it prevented us from getting one large table, and thus split the party into two tables separated by half the dining room. While the rest of the female interns clustered together and continued their conversation at one table, I took the opportunity to treat myself to hanging out at the table with the three male interns in our lunch group, who had conveniently congregated at the other table.
In the past, I may have felt awkward being the only female at the guys' table, but at this point, I've gotten past simply being comfortable with being, as Carsten put it, "the token chick in every all-guy group," to fairly enjoying it. I have found it to be the case that in nearly every social circumstance that I end up in, I greatly enjoy the company of men over the company of women, and as such, I will often gravitate towards the men that are around me. The best part of all this, I've found, is that most men find very quickly that I'm fairly hard to offend, and there has, to this date, never been a problem with racy jokes or crude comments. All in all, it's a far more comfortable and relaxing setting than attempting to pretend to be interested in some woman talk about the way it really annoys her when her boyfriend does [insert one of my habits here], all the while keeping my rude comments and jokes to myself, lest I truly offend and get some cockeyed looks. As such, I figured that I'd enjoy my plate of anti-constipation far more in the midst of a conversation with some intelligent men (one of whom was even fairly attractive, I dare say) about homemade flame throwers made from fire extinguishers filled with gasoline than whatever the other female interns could possibly have been talking about. Furthermore, I figured that as a favor to my fellow interns, it was far safer for me to sit away from the two women I'd been resisting the temptation to strangle in my current constipatory state, at least, until after I'd gotten some relief.
Of course, while lunch provided some much-needed relaxation, the rest of the afternoon proved exceedingly frustrating, as I discovered to my abject horror that I am still a victim to the crooked sense of humor whatever deity I've offended seems to have. I've had quite the familiar relationship with The Lord - in fact, to the point where we see each other on a regular basis, trade blasphemies, and he smites me with a little static shock. None of this lightning bolt crap - no, I'm not even good enough for a real smiting - I get smite lite - which is to say, I get the Bud Light of divine wrath. Of course, this isn't to say that the smite lite is in any way less effective than a real smite. Oh no... static shock damages ICs. Which of course, brings me to my complete lack of surprise at the irony of the timing in which I blew out my circuit: I'd just completed soldering the very last component into my board (the pieces of which I'd been waiting for days to arrive), and went over to ask the head technician a question. He asked to see the board, and no sooner did I proceed to hand it over, was my hand hit with an enormous static shock - most likely destroying the op amps that I'd worked so hard to procure, and with it, 3 days of work. ESD Protection my ass.
You'd think this misery would at least be compensated by the fact that I'm getting paid to endure it. Of course, this brings me to the very end of the day, when, upon seeing my paycheck and the measly little portion that I actually got to keep, I decided that there would simply be no more of this "shitting on the sly" for me. No, my friends, if Uncle Sam is going to piss away over 28% of my goddamn hard-earned money to fund the American government's fucked up mealy-mouthed mishandling of finances, paying for everything from the special teams dispatched at every airport specifically to harrass me in the name of "the fight against terrorism" to funding Donald Rumsfeld's personal White House ass-paper supply, I think I can take a few minutes from graphing voltage curves to lay down a load line of my own. And with that, I promptly entered "down with the Federal government, up with miniskirts" mode and spent the last 15 minutes of my work day modestly and pleasantly soiling the company toilet for all my lunchtime salad was worth. Mind you, while I'm certainly not ready to give up the good fight just yet, there's nothing like looking at the chunk of money that the Federal government gouges out of your paycheck to put everything in perspective.
Further bulletins as events warrant.
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