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Vague Dread and annoying person at work

So, this is kind of a stupid and self indulgent thing to write about, but it's my journal and I'm going to Bitch.

But, there's someone at work who I just hate having to work with, and this is a new working relationship even tho we've both been at the office for a couple years, and she's just annoying.

My job is to provide a very small amount of oversight for one particular area of her job - I review notes from her meetings and click a box to say, Yup, that's a "client meeting" by our office's rather narrow definition of a client meeting! That's it - no other oversight at all - I don't supervise her in any way at all. I do this element of it bc someone has to, and it's just convenient enough for that portion of the job to fall to my team, and I am assigned to her. Otherwise, my role is mostly about getting research done.

Only, while she's been here more than year and has been in this type of job for a while, she keeps labeling things as "client meeting" which absolutely do not even close to meet that standard. Like, not even close. And after each one, I have to email her, and say, "Did you mean for this to be a 'client meeting' because it doesn't meet the standards in x, y, and z way - please clarify." and then wait for her response and tell her how to fix it.

No one else makes this kind of mistake. Everyone else who submits these kind of reports to me, which is currently like 10 people, ever has this issue, and it's not based on a misunderstanding. My colleague, who used to these reports for this one person, warned me that this was coming, and that's why I even noticed these, because I don't normally have to scrutinize these reports very carefully at all. I've had to issue this same email to this one annoying person about four or five times now, in the course of maybe a month, when I have had to approach this issue maybe once in the last year for anyone else.

And I have a meeting with her today, in an hour, and I am just annoyed by the fact that I am going to have to handle her weird feelings about this and also reinforce, again, that this rule exists. I don't care about the rule! I just have to enforce it, and it's REALLY unprofessional and a waste of my time to have to spend effort on this.

Entry tags:

Reading Wednesday! and some stuff

Currently Reading:
The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers, which I sought out after finding some pages posted on Tumblr talking about the linguistics. So far, I'm about 25 pages in and I'm intrigued!

Recently Finished:

Litfic - A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine, which I cannot recommend highly enough! It was a fantastic, well paced story, with a thoughtful and engaging main character, full of court intrigue and the absolute disorientation of being a stranger in a strange land. Mahit has an observant and careful mind, and watching thru her eyes as she both gloried in the culture of the place she's wanted to visit for her entire life, and began to saw all the flaws and compromises of the place firsthand? A bliss. I ended up buying it just to keep a copy for myself - a great book, and the first in a series, I see! Also, her first book, which is just amazing.

Fanfic - Graduate Vulcan for Fun and Profit by lazulisong - Reread - Star Trek Reboot - Gen - This came up in conversation with a friend when we returned to our (delayed for The Magicians obsession) slow traipse thru Star Trek TOS. It's a wonderful, language-y kind of story, that shows a side of reboot!Kirk we don't see in the film. He's smart, hardworking, and absolutely shuns the spotlight for his academic work. There's also a wonderful slow worldbuilding for the surviving passengers and crew of the Kelvin, the ship that Jim's father captained for a eight awful, shining moments in the first reboot film - Jim's got a vast array of aunties and uncles and quasi-parents who all take notice and wish the best for him, and godDAMMIT, he can't get away from them. Gen!

Fanfic - Competition by astolat - Game of Thrones - Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth - Happily, not even slightly canon compliant now! Jaime Lannister can't get himself to actually tell Brienne he likes her. He is absolutely the only one with that problem. I'm just going to leave this bit here: “'The Dothraki have a saying, Lady Brienne,' Missandei said, smiling at her. 'Better a tall wife than a fast horse. And they love fast horses very much.'”

Life stuff:
I talked to my doc about my knee pain, which is anterior to the patella and seems to be a stress injury related to biking a lot in an otherwise sedentary lifestyle. I'm going to my first PT visit Friday.

I have been moved, finally, at last, to a office where I can control the lights, so no more headaches for me! I'm already feeling massively better. And I have it to myself until the end of June, when our new hire starts.

Oh, god, I am so, so tired

A few highlights from this weekend:

A truly fun and hilarious Eurovision party with some new friends that I REALLY enjoyed, tho Sweden got robbed
My sister's graduation in a field that I got a degree in and where my heart got immediately broken, causing me to have to change a huge amount of my career goals and just be kind of totally fucked career wise for about three years. So, I was both super jealous of her, and of a person I didn't get to be and really didn't want to be, who had done everything right and never had to deal with the shit I had to deal with.
Crying in car with my dude who *sort* of had known this was going to be a rough day for me and also sort of didn't realize exactly how rough.
Sleeping on the floor bc the inflatable bed that sleeps "two people snuggled up" was actually tested by some really thin people.
General festivities!
A truly awesome Turkish restaurant
Dealing With Mom

(no subject)

My cold has largely faded, but, in going, it went onto my poor unfortunate husbeast, so the household is still pretty sniffly on the whole. Poor boy.

Be the Serpent podcast continues to be an unending delight that yields excellent recommendations. And they include full transcripts with each episode. Go, go, now!

I found a childhood book, Carry On, Mr. Bowditch, after appealing to a book-finding community on DW with some details of my memories of it. It was their first suggestion! I'm honestly terrible about reading physical books, but this came from the library and it's a delight so I'm trying to make a point of reading it. It has a particular flavor of writing, being an 1956 Newberry book, so it's quick and kind of didactic. Suits my mood to a t.

This week at work was characterized by getting a new project (yay!) but having to collaborate with an annoying colleague to take over it (boo!). She's like the human personification of a dead fish handshake - she's not actively resisting, she just is not putting in any effort towards being personable or collegiality at all. The transfer is largely done, tho there's a meeting next week to talk about things with the other partners in the project, and that will be the last of it. I've decided to be amused by her.

Icon Memeing!

Shamelessly ganking from

elrhiarhodan, who ganked it from

krait who in turn ganked from

sylvaine, who posted it here on DW.

In a post about icons and icon usage on DW,

melannen commented,

That is also something I've noted with icons: people tend to be really bad at realizing what other people see when they look at them, sometimes because you need to know the fandom, sometimes you just need to know context that was cropped out of the shot. There used to be a meme that went around every so often that was like "explain your friends' default icon" and there were always surprises!

So there you go: Comment with your interpretation of my default icon! What am I saying about myself that I might not know?

(No cheating by looking at the description!)

Me and Game of Thrones 803 Spoilers

I am mostly recovered from my cold, but still tired and goofy and sniffly AF.

Game of Thrones spoilers thru episode 803 below

( y'all, this is not how you use dragons )

obviously we saw this coming

I have been sick, to varying degrees, for the last five days. I have been home from work for three days ( counting today) tho yesterday I had something with a deadline that I didn't want to make some other poor fuck at the office do it.

It's mostly just a cold, but the nasal congestion has been so bad and the selection of drugs in the house limited enough that I have been having some pretty epic headaches with it.

But, today, I can breathe thru my nose in a more than theoretical way, and I was able to do the dishes this morning without having to like, actually suffer and think about every since action I was making. So, yeah

I have been bingeing Movies with Mikey, which is a truly charming series of video essays from a dude who helped make Borderlands and then had a stroke and also watched his ability to function in his accustomed way and it is delightful.

Entry tags:

More Magicians 4x13 feelings

( Spoilers behind the cut for Magicians 413 )

Magicians 413 - no spoilers

but how fucking dare you

Edit: spoilers in the comments.

(no subject)

From The Friday Five

April is half over and we are tumbling toward May and soon it will be the season of graduating. It seems like every class has a graduation now, so how about you

1. Did you enjoy your senior year of high school?

Ha - not really. It was anxiety producing and mostly focused on heading into college. There was a bunch of weird drama in my loose friend group and I honestly was out of touch with everyone there by the next year.

2. Did you have a senior trip (high school) and were you able to go on it.

No recollection whatsoever.

3. Was graduating (from either high school or college/university) a big thing with your family or just another day?

It was both a big thing and a totally assumed thing - there was never any anxiety or doubt that it would happen, and going to college was treated as a done deal.

4. What were you looking forward to the most after graduating from either high school or college/university?

Ehhh, I went straight into grad school. Really, most of my graduations were shaped by anxiety and fear of the future.

5. Knowing what you know now, what advice would you give your graduating self?

Student loans are not your friend.

I am heavy laden with burdens, woe is me

Ok, I'm running on about 2 watts of brain power, so forgive me - I'm going to do a quick life update and then run away.

- My husband twisted his knee back on Feb 13th, and lo and behold, we found out on April 5th that actually, it wasn't just a bruise to the meniscus, it was an ACL tear and tears to both the lateral and medial meniscuses. So, surgery was an absolute necessity.

- Surgery happened Monday of this week and went well! He's recovering nicely and on crutches and in a full leg brace and cannot put any weight on it at all for this week and probably next. Can he do stairs? - Technically! Where do we live? The third floor! So he's in the apartment for at least five days solid.

- People have been very kind and been very helpful - my dad came to stay with us overnight, friends have stopped by with food or to just hang out. We're not truly isolated.

-Nevertheless, I'm the one making up a lot of the work that he can't do that he normally would, and some new stuff of just taking care of him. He made a big pot of carnitas before the surgery (which is just, such a fucking nice thing to do???) - I am re-heating it and managing groceries and taking care of all the dishes and house pick up and cleaning and fetching things and getting the door when people come by. He also needs some personal help - keeping the icing machine stocked with ice and changing it out and helping him with socks and changing clothes and grabbing things that he can't carry and bringing stuff he forgot so he doesn't have to get up. It's none of it a huge amount? But it's been sort of a lot that just keeps coming up, so it's hard to just get a solid twenty minutes at home where I don't have to get up and tend to something.

-My anxiety is up. [Pirate Voice: AHOY, HERE THERE BE WHINING! WHINGE, HO!] Partially it's just lack of solitary time - he's in the house all day and there's only one room other than the bedroom, so that's a lot of togetherness. But also I'm anxious that he'll get hurt or that he won't do his PT and the injury will be worse. He's in pain every day and that fucking grinds on him and on me and I feel like a shit for going back to work instead of working from home but I also like my job? I'm worried that we both need to lose weight to help our joint issues, but it's a fucking hard thing to do and I haaate everything about weight loss """culture""" and the shitty way it makes me feel. I'm worried about the house being a mess and it being my fault so I'm clearing all the surfaces and then being tired and my foot hurts and that starts the cycle of being scared about *my* health.

-And my bike got a flat tire on the way to work today. So, I had to bail and carry my work laptop and all my gear back to the nearest train station and leave my bike there, alone and unloved, until I can get it this evening and figure out fixing the flat tire. And all the stuff was heavy so it was a rough thing to carry it all and I am fatigued. (Or, as the Franch would have it, fatty gay.)

The Confederate Flag is deeply offensive.

The starting point of this post assumes that you get that the Confederate Flag is deeply offensive and closer to being the symbol of white supremacist terrorists than holding any other meaning. We clear? If not this is not the post for you! Have a nice day.

With that said, of all the ways I expected Midsomer Murders to be wildly offensive, draping Confederate Flags over absolutely everything in a Wild West themed episode was not among them. Holy fucking shit, do the English not know this?

This episode aired in twenty fucking ten!

(no subject)

Poll #21636 Quick Check on Some Racist BS

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 12

View Respondents

If you hear a story about a white man harassing an immigrant Asian woman who is his neighbor, and your first response is "Why did she give him her email? What happened between them and cause him to behave like this? What was their relationship and how did it turn so sour?" how racist is that response?

View Answers
Mean: 3.83 Median: 4.5 Std. Dev 1.40

undetectable from background norm of racism 1		1 (8.3%)
2		2 (16.7%)
3		1 (8.3%)
4		2 (16.7%)
Super duper racist 5		6 (50.0%)

EDIT March 22/2019:

Forgive me folks, I posted this while I was irritated at someone and left out quite a few key details. I also had vaguely meant to sound like a sarcastic "on a scale of very racist to super racist," etc etc, but I quite failed in the sarcasm, and I ended up sounding confusing and probably kind of gross myself. I'm sorry - I did this in a hurry and didn't review properly, on a reasonably sensitive subject. That's on me.

BACKGROUND: On a far distant forum, a schoolteacher was asking for advice on behalf of her colleague, a new assistant teacher, a woman, who had recently moved from China to the US to help the new Mandarin program get started. The new assistant teacher was getting emails from a white man, her neighbor, who decided to tell her about his generalized hate for Chinese people. The assistant teacher felt it was a threat and possibly a sign of violence, and had tried to go to police to ask for help. The police had declined to help because it wasn't a direct threat against her, just against Chinese people *generally*, and that the town was very safe and she should just block his emails.

The schoolteacher in question was posting to ask advice on what next steps to take to help her Chinese colleague, who is pretty freaked out. Some of the advice helpfully suggested by other members of the forums was good! Including: getting in touch with a lawyer, documenting all the times this scary man reaches out, talking to local Chinese-American groups to ask for advice and help about how to handle it.

And, of course, One Person had to be That Guy, and she decided that it was Simply Impossible, Too Much to be Believed! that a random white dude in a random majority white town with a minority population of Chinese people, would just at totally random decide to harass a newly immigrated Chinese woman who lived near him. Ms. That Guy simply Had To Know, WHAT COULD HAVE HAPPENED, that this isolated immigrant woman would be targeted in this way by a white dude in his early 50's??? What had PASSED BETWEEN THEM??

And so, That Guy (who, yes, is a woman, in this case, the forum is women-only) asked a whole bunch of questions that generally implied it was more important to Figure Out the Motive of the scary white dude harassing his neighbor than actually figure out ways to help the neighbor.

*insert Picard facepalm*

So I pointed out that actually, we don't need to know the motives of this creep - we need to help these people be safe and figure out safe ways of stopping his behavior. Racism exists, people of color get harassed by white people without provoking them in any way - this is not an extraordinary claim that requires extraordinary proof to be believed. People sometimes share their emails with their neighbors, and men frequently use women's contact information to harass them, and people of color often get harassed by white people - as the Dothraki say, IT IS KNOWN.

As often happens, the That Guy woman decided that """"people""""" were calling her racist, """"just because she's white"""" and flounced away.

And then I got annoyed and vague posted about it in an effort to vent my irritation, and then left you all in a state of confusion. :/ Not my best day.

my brain is done for the day, and I'm just going to burble here

I am biking every day to work now and have decided to optimize a few things to make the process of biking, which I adore, something that is also easy to sustain.

- Recently got a very Dramatic Haircut from past the shoulder length hair to pixie cut with an undercut and I am d e l i g h t e d with how fast my hair dries now. I can wash it every day and it's amazingly dry in like 30 minutes. Is this how men live?

- I have decided (well, oozed into) getting serious about packing my toiletries kit bag for lightness and ease of use, since I am biking every day now and arrive a sweaty mess, and have discovered the following things in the last few days:

Solid soaps are just as good as body wash, provided you pay for reasonably good soaps. Cutting the soaps into smaller chunks means you can bring several different soaps for your face and body in the same container.
Solid shampoo aka Shampoo bars - brilliant concept, shampoo that's a bar of soap. No spilling, and they make several that are sulfate free aka good for color-treated hair. I have gone somewhat overboard and bought about 10 different samples from three companies to try things out. Again, cutting chunks off the bar means you can fit it into your travel soap tin with the other soaps.
Contact lens cases make perfect storage for liquid skin treatment stuff that you only need a very little bit of - moisturizer, skin treatments, sun screen, eye cream. When you only use about three droplets a day of something, but you need it every day, contact lens case - perfect for a little dollop.
Gel anti-antiperspirant can be scooped into a small leak proof tub and applied with your fingers and works just as well as bringing the whole stick. But bringing a tiny amount means you don't have to carry whole plastic stick in your kit every day, bulking up the thing.
A quick drying travel towel is w o r t h it. So worth it.
Getting toothbrush travel cap that has a suction cup on it is ideal bc then you can just stick it to things that are not normally covered with toothbrushes and it is hilarious.

Mr Rogers was bisexual, pass it on

CITATIONS: https://twitter.com/CeceEwing_/status/1102353574984507393

(no subject)

I went to my lunch knitting group with bitterness in my heart about linear time and it was a balm to my wounded soul.

Tired girl

Personal:

The husbeast has learned a new trick - walking with only one crutch. Huzzah!

I left the house with sink of dirty dishes bc after having some delightful friend over for dinner last night (dinner which they brought! and left leftovers! Good friends indeed!)

I am still feeling like I am running short on patience and time. Husbeast is actually doing kind of great on providing emotional support for my generalized levels of tiredness and grump. He is a Good Boy™.

Media!

I am re-listening to Come From Away – which is hard to describe other than “moving”. It’s emotionally intense? But I have trouble pinning down what exactly the emotion is – grief and gratitude are chief.

I haven’t been reading as much as the last few weeks. I have officially abandoned City of Stairs, but I picked up Black Tides of Heaven, which was a gift of a book. I read Ulysses by girlbookwrm which is great, and one of the tentpoles for the next episode of Be the Serpent, a podcast of deep literary merit.

I have actually been listening to a lot of podcasts in the last week or so – it’s something I can do while in the shower or doing dishes, so they are kind of perfect.

Podcast Recs!

Be the Serpent – a podcast of deep literary merit. They are all writers, and they all talk about fanfic with as much respect and affection as profic.They are a delight AND they post annotated transcripts with each new episode. ALSO, I have really liked all the stories and books they have recommended so far!

You Can’t Do That – a hockey podcast by four know-it-alls who know a medium amount. A bunch of hilarious horny women with tongues firmly in cheek discuss the NHL and players’ social media.

Wine and Murder Night – two hilarious women watch cozy murder mysteries and drink wine. It’s great and deeply chatty.

A brief update and a reflection on how to take care of yourself while taking care of others.

The husbeast's knee is still being a jerk - his doc says, given his level of mobility, that it's probably a bruise and not a tear to the meniscus, and to give it another 10 days on anti-inflammatories and stay on crutches.

It's hard to buy that it's only been four days - I feel pretty stretched thin. Normally, we do a fair job splitting the housework and food prep, and Husbeast does the driving, so to have him at home for several days and have all of that on my shoulders feels like a lot.

He bought himself crutches and, after I read a tumblr post praising shower seats, I got him a cheapy shower stool so that he can actually get a chance to bath properly instead of stewing.

That being done, in the last couple of days, which I had off, I have not actually been super restful! I did groceries and got the dude out of the house to a coffeshop for the first time in days while I did that, I have done laundry, made soup for the week for dinner, cleaned my bike's front wheel and brakes to try and kill the awful shrieking noise, made lunches for the two of us for the week, bought replacement bras for my favorite one that went rogue, bought replacement orthotic inserts for MY foot issues (which I have to do every 6 months and had just let it go way too long), and replacement orthotic slippers so that I don't wander around the house barefoot.

I have learned that when I'm taking care of someone else, I can't dick around with taking care of myself - I have to do what works, and what's easiest, or I get burnt out fast. So, I sprung for buying my orthotic inserts online instead of going to the podiatrist (about $10 more expensive but doesn't mean I have to take a trip to the doc during the work day), and made a soup that I like and works well instead of thinking about new recipes, and let myself buy takeout on a night when we still had some food in the house that could have been a meal.

In short, all of the things I am doing to take care of myself involve being willing to throw some money at a problem and I have absolutely NO PATIENCE for anyone who says that people doing caretaking work or who have disabilities themselves need to scrimp and save and should ashamed of getting help or extra money. Fuck that - this is already exhausting and I have an end date in sight.

In which I am the plucky heroine of a Girl Scouts novel

The past twelve hours have been too cinematic not to write it down.

Last Night:
I'm eating Chinese take out at home, watching a Korean period drama about zombies with a glass of wine while my brownies cool on the counter under their layer of Valentine's Day chocolate ganache.

A text message! My Dear Husbeast is at his gym, injured and unable to walk due to a twisted knee! He needs a rescue - he can put no weight on his knee.

I summon a ride, go there, meet his fencing coach, he helps me hobble the Husbeast to the car and we're driven home. The very kind driver also helps me get Husbeast over the icy road, into the house, and he heaves himself bodily up to the third floor while I open doors and assist. Once in bed, with ice and water and painkillers, he's stable and fine and will be talking to a doctor in the morning. I do the dishes I was planning on leaving because there's nothing worse than being stuck at home when the house is filthy, and we agree to cancel our Valentine's Dinner out.

This morning:
Because Husbeast can't walk, I do some set up for him for the day, but he's mostly fine.

I grab Chinese leftovers for lunch, head downstairs.

I pull my bike out, and do some minor maintenance I have put off for too long. Air in the tires, oil on the chain, and then wipe it clean. Ready to go!

Loyal Steed is perfect, but the roads are covered in black ice and the ride is very, very slow picking our way around it. I have to pop into the car lane a lot in places where the bike lane is blocked or just looks unsafe. (Thank god for the separated bus lane in some places!) While traffic is slow, some drivers are not mindful of safe distances and it's much more stressful than usual.

I get to work, and head to the shower. I already know I'm going to be late, but hopefully not too late.

BUT. My Chinese takeout has leaked from its container into my tote bag. The sauce is dripping out onto the floor through the bag - a bunch of things are coated or soaked.

Fortunately, I never put my clothes in the same bag as my lunch! My work outfit is safe.

So, I dump everything out from the tote, and stick the empty bag under the shower nozzle. Soon, it's clean, but the shower smells of takeout while I take my shower. I dry off and start to get my clothes on.

BUT. My favorite bra has broken! The underwire is poking out of the seam, and it's going to be visible in this dress. Drat. I get dressed anyways, and head to my office.

At my cube, I hang my wet tote bag on a hook, grab my tiny emergency sewing kit, and realized, that the needles are lost.

BUT, I have my knitting kit, and that has a few sewing needles in it. I grab two and head to the bathroom. Dress off, bra in hand, I stitch up the channel for the underwire and the bra is fixed, for now. I sit down at my desk, and start to get some work done, an hour late.

So, what have we learned, children?

Back on my bullshit

City of Stairs is again proving the problem - if it's a plot point that your country isn't producing steel, where are you getting your cars? Seriously, where is the steel for cars, roads, and infrastructure coming from?

EDITED:
Okay, much is explained by this interview: The author does not in fact care about the stuff that's bugging the fuck out of me.

from Bigger on the Inside: Talking with Robert Jackson Bennett about City of Stairs

Brian Slattery: To someone following your career, a move into fantasy doesn’t seem all that unlikely. So it’s interesting that you mentioned yourself that you would “never set anything in a second-story world, chiefly because I always felt these sorts of things were kind of, well, a big pain in the ass.” Then you went on to say that “I’ve never been happier to be proven wrong—I’m having a tremendous amount of fun.” Can you flesh this out a little bit? Why did you shy away from a book like this? What changed your mind? And once you dug into it, what did you discover that a fantasy book could let you do that you hadn’t been able to do before?

Robert Jackson Bennett: Well, to be fair, it is a big pain in the ass. To maintain this world, I have to carefully curate what is now an eleven-page Word document consisting of a 2,000 year timeline, along with varying names of the months, the days, the religious texts. This would be a pain in the ass to maintain even if it corresponded with a real-world history (imagine a Word document summing up the Tudors), but when the burden rests on me to provide the name of the book or town (or whatever), and make sure it’s consistent with all the other books and towns I’ve mentioned thus far, then suddenly I have to think very long and hard about this tossed-off mention of a thing in a single line of the book that has no long term consequences on the plot whatsoever.

But it actually is quite a bit of fun. What I’m describing are the most boring bits, the parts I like the least, but I also get to do all kinds of fun things, where the way the miracles work and the ways the cities are structured reflects what I feel to be the nature of our own real world, only distorted. Fantasy offers us the opportunity to take the limitless contradictions that confront us in our world and set them against one another, thus allowing us a rare peek into what makes these contradictions both so ridiculous and so desperately human.