The Office

At work, my desk is located in the library. Two monitors, speedy rig, intranet IM system, phone, co-workers behind me. Last week, the library closed, and they're closed this week, too. They open back up on the first day of school (I work at a community college). I'm stationed in the Integrated Learning Center (ILC) for the time being. Oftentimes, I need to get security to unlock the doors for me, and I set up at one of the many lab computers.

The first three days, I had no phone access, but my boss came by to fix that. So my old office phone is here, on a 50-feet wire to stretch to the only available wall port. Not very office-y at all.

There's a separate desk in the back corner. The woman who sits there has been on vacation for nearly two months. She came back yesterday, and upon my arrival into the "office," she asked me to help her change her expired password. I set up the form once I signed in, and waited for her to come fill it out.

After taking the liberty to re-arrange the desk setup, her first password attempt failed, and I paid more attention on her next try.
"Are you sure that's your password? You only have 7 characters," I asked.
"I think I remember my own password. I've always had this password!"
Woah. I'm trying to help you here. I could make you go to the employee desk for this. "Well, it's just that all passwords are required to be at least 8 characters."
"THIS IS MY PASSWORD!"
"Welp. It's the first 7-character password I've ever seen in my many years of doing this job, but just for giggles, let's go ahead and have you click on "forgot your password" and fill out THAT form."
Watching her fumble with things and ask me to validate literally every move ("Then I put in my birth date?"), I seriously wonder why she's allowed her own computer.

While she filled that out, I texted my boss: "Holy crap. Is Sandy a bit of a bitch? She's being really bitchy to me while I try to help her change her SEVEN char password." No reply for a couple hours. Meanwhile, she proceeded to tell me that my bottle of water, with the cap on, is not allowed on the computer desk. Really?! Text back from Bossman: "Yeah. She's wretched." Meagan (my best friend and co-worker on the other campus) said it sounds like she's trying to reclaim dominance. I'll say! She may as well have peed on my desk!



HOWEVER TODAY! Ohhh today. Came in. Surprised by an orientation event I wasn't told about. Covered that event from the lounge area (with laptops set up). Had to move all over the place, . At the end, I got to have a slice of pizza for my troubles.

Something went wrong with my timesheet, and my boss told me to see Yvonne about it (she's the secretary in the library, and she just got back from vacation yesterday, too). That means I got to go back to my old desk at the library.

Just the act of sitting back in my chair, at my desk, with my two monitors, and my co-workers behind me... I even got to sign into it!. So nice. SO. NICE. I felt like this big ball of stress just lifted away from me.

Steampunk'd

Another bitch-fest. Remember when my oncoming moon-sickness didn't cause massive irritability at every little thing? And now how many entries are all about me bitching? I swear, I do blog about good stuff, too! I dooooo!

Last night, I watched the first episode of Steampunk'd. When I first heard about it, I suspected it to be a big ball of cheese. The host, Jeannie Mai is not Steampunk. She doesn't dress Steampunk, she wears super-expensive high fashion things that are just ornate enough to pass. Basically, she's costuming. She's a fashionista who is profiting off a fad. I feel like I'm gatekeeping by saying all this about her, but I feel like Kato should have been the host, though I guess being the host doesn't account for anything on this show (it's not like she's one of the judges).

The contestants' arrival in the meeting area was a big ball of fake - you're told to go to this spot, and you're all surprised to find out that each person who trickle in is also a Makers? "Wow, so we're all Makers here??" Why is this a revelation? Were you expecting to be the only one in the contest? Were you expecting some of them to be a couple of hot dogs in a sweater?

When they introduced the contestants, I was a bit put off by two of them - One who calls herself Miss Morgan. Granted, that's her name, but it's weird to call yourself that when there's already a Steampunk model (who regularly works with Kato) named Miss Morgane.

The other was J.W. Kinsey. It surprised me he wasn't asked to be a judge instead. He's incredibly talented. I'm also surprised he's even allowed to be a contestant, since he worked together directly with Kato last year, and she obviously has a huge bias for him (as immediately confirmed in the judging).

Watching him the show made me really angry, because I'd never seen JW in person before. He acted like a real asshole to everyone. I felt torn, because he'd always been a cool guy to talk to on Facebook. I would chat with him whenever I needed advice on a new tool for my woodshop. Nice guy online, jerk in person? What's going on here?

I know the "Reality TV" game. They heavily edit things, they make things all twisted, they create drama that isn't there (this is why you see people who appear as jerks on reality contests for so long into the season). Today, I read a "first episode" review by JW. He spent the whole thing defending himself. He said that they severely edited whole conversations down to short back-and-forth exchanges that made him out to be a pretentious ass. That out of context, of course he's going to seem like a big jerk to everyone. I really want to believe in this personal defense. I want to believe he's still the nice guy I talk to on the internet.

As for the other contestants, I've only ever seen the works of one of them online before (first to get kicked off, too). When it came down to him and JW, I honestly thought JW would get the boot to cover their asses about the contestant/judge bias. But I guess they want to keep the made up drama going.

I don't know if I want to keep watching the show.