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Office moving blues

So the office that I work in was subleased from another company, and the lease had ended this past June. The landlord told us that they wanted their furniture back for use in a newer office, but told us that we could take our time as they wouldn't need it until September. So we scrambled around looking for new furniture for the office, and finally were ready to go by mid-September. We call them up to let them know, but they still needed more time to arrange the movers. Fair enough, we wait until the end of September, and they still haven't gotten around to doing anything. By the beginning of October, it's still on-hold, and we are starting to feel the pressure because the places that we ordered furniture from are asking us to hurry and get the furniture delivered. They keep changing the people that I am to interface with, and the poor woman who got the job passed to her 2 days earlier worked her ass off to get us a date, but only to suffer the wrath of my boss yelling at her for doing such a poor job.

So moving day finally rolls around, and the day before, we're busy packing everything up to reduce the load of the workers that are coming in the next day. A crew of 7 people come in and I'm going over the list of stuff that they are to take. Since they are also taking the cubes, my farting co-worker and I are affected by the move, and had to move everything out of our cubes. So 2 million things are all happening at once, as I'm running around making sure that these guys don't take our furniture, helping them mark which furniture they should take, and looking through the checklist to make sure they are getting everything. So I am obviously pretty busy, and my farting co-worker comes up to me and asks me if I can help her set up her desktop in one of the offices. WTF???? Bitch! Can't you see that I am busy??? I just tell her that I'll be with her in a minute and that I have to help this guy get everything in order. 5 mins later, she pulls out a notebook PC, and tells me that she can't get onto the network with it... ARGH!!!! I haven't snapped yet, but I'm about to... I just tell her that that notebook PC hasn't been set up to the domain, and if she knows how to do that (because I only showed her 100 times in the past) that she should just go ahead and connect herself that way. As usual, she doesn't remember, and needs my assistance, but I am completely tied up that I can't help her out at all. I'm just thinking to myself, why is everyone in my office so arrogant to believe that they should always be first? Everything seems to be me, me, me, and when there's someone to blame, it's you, you, you... *sigh* She finally leaves because she can't get anything done, so I breathe a sigh of relief.

As all of this stuff is going on, my arrogant co-worker is making all kinds of obvious statements such as "Make sure they get the right stuff" and "Don't let them take our furniture" to me which is starting to get on my nerves, and I tell him not to worry about anything, and ask him to leave for a little while as he won't be able to get much done with all of the racket that's going to be going on with them moving and taking down the cubes. Luckily, my boss had several off-site appointments in the morning, so she didn't show up until later when they were finishing up the move.

Later in the day, I have to go out to Fremont to one of our portfolio companies where they are holding the new cubes to come into our office, and make sure those movers get the right stuff... Talk about extreme differences between the first group and this group. The first group was a set of professional movers and they had a crew of 7 guys to come in and take everything. The second group is a Chinese moving company that my boss found, and the crew consisted of one Chinese guy and a Mexican. Amazingly, the Chinese guy could speak Spanish... so of course, it took a lot longer for them to move the parts for two different cubes into our office.

Finally, another set of movers from the company that we ordered our conference table from came in to move the final piece. At the end of the day, I was pretty beat with all of the commotion in the office, and I guess so were my co-workers from not being able to work. My arrogant co-worker is funny in the way he does things though.... He'll see that I need some help in moving around some furniture, and give this half-assed effort to move something, but if it looks like I can get it, he just lets go without warning, and lets me finish the job. We were moving a bookcase, for instance, so he starts unloading the books off the shelf, so I come in to assist since there were a shitload of books to take off. Once I come in to help, he just stops, and supervises me... WTF??? I just want to get it done... geez...

Anyway... it's finally over... my co-workers are all pretty much tools...

Funny Japanese commercial

Thought you'd all get a kick out of this funny commercial from Japan. It's GOOD! GOOD! Enjoy! :D

Gary's driver gripes

So Gary has this funny posting on his blog site about stupid drivers. Although he is referring mainly too stupid drivers in Japan, I figure that it pretty much applies to anywhere.

I know that I have encountered my fair share of Sunday drivers, and I probably have been one of them from time to time... :D

#7 was especially interesting to me:

7. Last but not least, PAY ATTENTION to the road and other drivers! Don't put on make up, change clothes, focus on the stereo, whatever. I got stuck behind this idiot trying to dig some crap out of her bag as she drove at 30kph for about 3km. I was on my bike so to make it worse, she kept pulling to the left so that I couldn't pass. I about went over and slapped that biyotch. When I went back to Hawaii last week, this different idiot was on the H1 driving at 50mph trying to change his shirt and swerving all over the place in the process. To top it off, at one point, his driver side door went flying open. I was going to suggest to him that although he should pull over to do what he was doing, the least he could do is take off his seatbelt.

YIKES!!! changing a shirt and swerving all over the place??? Talk about a prime candidate for the Darwin Awards!!!

For me, I have a few other gripes about lousy drivers over here in California:

1. At unprotected intersections (the ones that don't have a seperate light and lane for people making left turns), TURN YOUR DAMN SIGNALS ON! I don't know how many times I have had to wait in the middle of the intersection for some asshole who didn't bother to put on his left turn signal, making me think that he is going to go straight through.

2. A line on the road doesn't mean you have to stop if there isn't a stop sign! It's annoying when you're driving behind a person who doesn't realize that there isn't a stop sign signifying you to stop at an intersection, and does this for every block simply because there is a line on the road. I had to follow a car doing this for about 7-8 intersections when there was not a stop sign to be seen anywhere.

3. If there are two left turn lanes and you are in the far left one, it does not give you the right to go into any other lane but the left lane after you make the turn! There have been several times when people nearly run into me and give me nasty looks because I wouldn't let them over. WTF? Where am I supposed to go asshole???

4. Use your turn signals when making a lane change. I can't read your mind.

5. Turn your signal off when you're done making a lane change. A mile later is too long... I know you're excited that you made the lane change, but try to find some other way to celebrate.

6. If you tailgate me because you want to get ahead and I move over a lane, when I move back behind you, you better be going damn fast. Talk about a pain in the ass. I'll be going 80 on the freeway, and some asshole is riding my tail, so I pull over a lane, let him pass, and get back behind him, and now this asshole is driving 70...

7. MAKE UP YOUR DAMN MIND! I hate indecisive drivers. They put their signal on to let me know they're going to merge into my lane, hesitate, pull back into their lane, and just as I am getting ready to accelerate, they put the blinker on again. Sometimes, this will go on for 2-3 tries...

8. Not really a gripe, but I find this to be hillarious... I'll be driving on the freeway in moderate traffic, and some asshole will be tailgating me... there is no way I can speed up, nor can I safely move over a lane. Once the guy finds a breakaway in the next lane, he goes for it. That lane will eventually slow down, and then he'll merge over another lane and speed up, and keep doing this back and forth until he gets back to my lane, and finds himself either one car behind me or one car ahead of me. The really fun ones are when he is about 5 cars behind me...

Well... those are the only gripes off the top of my head, but I'm sure there are a lot more... What are everyone else's gripes with drivers in your area?

How to walk through a museum

This blog entry highlights ways to better enjoy and manage your time in a museum. I know for a fact that whenever I visit a museum, I end up not really knowing why I am just looking at paintings on a wall. People tell me to look for the "feeling" that caused the artist to make the painting, but especially with modern art, I have no idea how to find it. Unless it is a very famous artist whose history I know about, I really have no bearing as to how to truly appreciate art. These tips have nothing to do with that, and are all very practical ways to look at art.

I especially like tip #5:

5. If you are visiting a blockbuster exhibit, skip room number one. There is too much human traffic, as the people have not yet admitted to themselves they don't care about what is on the wall.

Most of the time that I end up wondering why people end up staring at a picture for so long, and walk up and back to it. I wonder if they are doing that because they know something, if they have a badsight, or just want to look like they know what they are doing. The opposite is me... I pass by it, look at it, and keep moving on. Two extremes I guess...