the danish outpost
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and the night just unfolded

2001-06-23

feeling kinda how a girl feels

no yin without yang. this is what i realized last night.

we had our annual kickoff meeting the other day. (always good to wait until the first quarter is almost over before doing that...) it was such a painful morning, i can't even begin to explain. oh, wait. yes, i can. ;)

there is nothing that sets my teeth on edge quite as much as the wholesale slaughter of the English language. the ever wonderful Sarah wrote a great piece recently that had me laughing and wincing all at the same time. i'll also admit that i've been hyper aware of its v. it's as a direct result. hey, we all have our weak points.

so i'm trying to listen to the speakers outlining the vision and mission for our company. and i'm whacked over the head by a hideously misused 'it's', right up there on the slide. this is quickly followed by 'who's perfect day'. gah! whose, not who's! scads of unnecessary "quotes" all over the place. 'work careful'. and senseless verbing of nouns, left and right. also - 'professional users' of our product are apparently the target audience. as opposed to... amateur users? it's not like we sell to the home market. they're all professionals.

people, this is why you hire assistants. let them proofread your garbage before you throw it up in front of others. goddess forbid this is what we show our potential clients.

and let's not even get into the atrocities of the spoken language. or, more accurately, the lack of diction while uttering such inanities as 'triggering 'n whatnot'. the true kicker was 'a talented team like you'. i was so irritated at that point that what i heard was 'i actually have another talented team, and they're an awful lot like you. you're good, but you're not them.' i had to keep biting my tongue, hard, as each speaker finished up and for some reason saw fit to come land at my table.

the whole thing didn't exactly get off to an auspicious start, either. laptop: $5000. overhead projection unit: $10,000. watching several $100,000 a year executives for a computer company dick around with said equipment for 20 minutes trying to get their presentations up and running: priceless.

did i mention this was a morning meeting, and there was no coffee?

what i was able to get out of the meeting wasn't good. for crying out loud, they were all discussing the same financials, and couldn't agree on the year end numbers. this is Not a Good Sign. the bottom line is we've lost some benefits, they've over committed us, and the next release is due in just a few months.

:sigh: painful, painful morning. and it's been a brutal week. the overall lack of sleep has left me truly incoherent. must be another price to pay for getting older; i find it takes me longer and longer to recover from one late night. and i've had several this week, which just compounds the problem.

i was actually so wiped out that i finally realized i was going to have to bag out on jo's birthday party. not like i needed to be the life of the party; after all, she's the birthday girl. but it just didn't seem like good form to be snoring and drooling in the corner while everyone else is trying to celebrate. made me sad to pass on that, since i haven't seen her in nearly a year, and there were several other people i wanted to catch up with. eh.

as it turns out, tho, i may have made the wiser choice. got home to find a message from The Boy, asking if i might be free, and did i find a bottle of wine and a movie appealing? oh, yes, indeed. (this would be the yang to the morning's yin, by the way.)

of course, getting him up here was a comedy of errors. last night's lesson, boys and girls: never get directions from someone who doesn't drive. the tip off should have been when i said 'you know that turn over the bridge on the right, where you can get to the mall?' 'yes.' 'don't take it.' mind you, he's writing all this down. :rolls eyes: i should have just given up there and called Triple A for him.

you know, even when i did have a car, i navigated by landmarks, not street signs. there wouldn't be a way to get around New England without Dunkin' Donuts and 7 Elevens, i swear. 'so, take the exit, and you go and you go, and then hang a left at the wicked big Dunkin' Donuts.' and if they move the Gas 'n Sip? it's all over. you'll never find your way out of here.

naturally, i got a call. 'you're next to *what*? i told you not to take that turn!' yeah, right after describing the turn, a clear guarantee that that was what was going to happen. it was pretty damn funny trying to play Air Traffic Controller as he read off the street signs. i did learn something out of all this - i now know where Leverett Circle is. heretofore, it was only known as that Seventh Circle of Traffic Hell over by the Museum of Science. never actually knew what it was called. so there you go.

between the Big Dig restructuring the face of the city every 24 hours or so, and the lack of street signs, it's a miracle that anyone ever finds their way thru the city. heard recently that there's a bill in the House to require clear and accurate signage on all streets. there's a novel concept, eh? we'll see how far that one gets in the morass of bureaucratic red tape.

anyway... turned out to be just the night i needed. he got here, with the promised bottle of wine, we ordered in dinner, and we watched some Eddie Izzard. sometimes, the night just unfolds the right way.

yesterday :: tomorrow

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