Bush in the Land of his Friends

So Bush is in the land of his best friends — the Muslim world. It has become almost comical to see him standing at his little podium, mouthing vague insults about Iran.

The guy is just so obviously a psychopathic creep it’s just hilarious. Now that he is in full-blown lame duck mode, with Congress running 10-second sessions to prevent Bush from making recess appointments, it’s clear that the nation has risen up to halt him in his tracks. Yet, true to form, he’s still up there on his itsy-bitsy Bully Pulpit throwing juvenile insults at the Iranian government.

Bush should show some dignity at this point, and try to do something about the messes he’s already created. But rather than going to clean his room like a good little boy, he still wants to show that he’s the Bad Boy and he has a lot of messes left in him.

I really hope this period of history stands out for America, and shows what can happen when you put a full-blown psychopath into power.

END OF CRAPPY JOB!!

OK I think this one should do it. I have been trying to wait for money to come in for the job I want, but it just looks like it’s not going to happen. Meanwhile, the politics on my current team are just horrible. Smooth, Dumb, and Nasty are just at their finest. Dumb got some high praise from one of our internal customers, primarily because he’s the only one they work with. And because he’s an ass-sucking creep. So he and Smooth have been all inflated and full of themselves.

They scheduled a “design meeting” fro my project, which I’m sure is an ambush. Smooth said he’s going to have Dumb get up and talk about the overall design — as if Dumb is qualified or able to generate an overall design — but then he’ll let me go into my piece, which happens to be the piece that does the actual work.

Later I found out that the whole team is invited — including Nasty — so I’m sure it’s going to be an opportunity to gang up, strut around, and stick their thumbs up each other’s asses.

Anyway, spurred by the prospect of that, and also the bleak prospects of getting the job I’ve been waiting for, I went ahead and asked about transferring to another team. The manager of that team was really happy, and now it looks like that is going to go through smoothly, barring some negotiation between him and Smooth over the transition.

I want to be a party to that negotiation — since it is about me. On the other hand, Smooth doesn’t run a real tight ship, so a longer transition just gives me more time to work on my side project.

In any case, it’s looking like by the end of next month I should be off this crappy team, and my memories of Smooth, Dumb, and Nasty will just be funny stories I can tell my grandkids.

More fun

So now I’m just in a holding pattern waiting for money to come in for the position I want, or some shoe to drop to signal that it’s time to move on from here.

This team is just nuts. I’ve been working with Dumb on this project, and suddenly he goes “silent”. In his mind, his driving the project (but only in his mind), so suddenly I was amazed at the lack of micromanagement I was experiencing.

So I took at look at source control to see what he’d been up to, and he’s off working on *another* project.

Now I’m sure he’ll be back, and I’ll hear about it the moment he is. But where’s the coordination? Where’s the communication? Neither he, ace project manager that he is, or my boss Smooth, ace project manager that he is, let me know that Dumb was off working on something else.

The short of it is, this is a crazy, dysfunctional team with terrible communication. I have no idea what anyone else is working on, not even the peers that I am working with directly.

My dad made a good point though. Because Smooth is so ambitious, he doesn’t want to report any bad news. For him, everything is rosey and peachy in his little domain. So as long as I go with the flow, and chalk up some bullet points here and there, I have good job security.

I’m not satisfied with that, though, and I’m not willing to tolerate the bullying that goes on because the team, and a couple of its members, are so broken. It’s just a matter of waiting for the good position to come through, or else look for a good opening to jump through to another team.

Cloverfield Predictions

OK I’m going to make some predictions of the upcoming Cloverfield monster movie. After I see it, I’ll run through the list and check off where I was right.

This is based on evidence from the Alternate Reality Game and viral marketing that Paramount has been putting out, from posts on the various forums, and the trailers and TV spots.

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The Chuai station was established to exploit a deep-sea region inhabited by extremophiles (i.e. hardy little buggers) that lived in the deep trenches. They found “deep sea nectar”, which is otherwise known as MONSTER POOP. The monster who produces this poop, and also creates a whole ecosystem around it, turned out to be bigger and more bad-tempered than the Tag engineers anticipated.

After a year of putting up with drilling and bombardment the ocean floor with sonar, this very large extremophile rose from the depths to tell them to knock it off. This it did with a distinct lack of subtlety. Then it followed the sound or sonar of a passing tanker, which it followed to the Big Apple.

It found the Big Apple, and its residents, to be very tasty. It probably thinks of them as “above sea nectar”.

Satellite parts? Coincidental.

And Slusho? SLUSHO IS… MONSTER POOP!

Other predictions:

+ because of survival in a deep-sea trench, the monster probably burrows and has access to either volcanic vents or some sort of geothermal heat. This gives it an intimate relationship with natural gasses and heat, which above water produce FIRE and lots of it.

+ the monster is norished by fire

+ the monster is able to create fire in various ways, including having the little lifeforms that live on it produce sources of fire

+ because of its ability to survive in incredibly harsh conditions, it is really, really hard to kill

+ because it has to move a huge mass through water, above water it can move surprizingly fast and with unbelievable power

+ the big thing is amphipious (for some reason) and is closer to a frog or a turtle than a reptile

+ the thing has two arms and two legs; its armspan is very wide, the same as its overall length. It is incredibly hunched over, and walks primarily like an animal on all 4s, but can rear up and use its arms to grab things (like helicopters)

+ The thing has a huge, triangular face with swivel eyes and a huge gaping mouth with big fangs that would be effective in eating whales

+ It does rub on buildings and knock off smaller creatures (i.e. I think that rumor is credible)

+ Marlena explodes, but literally, like in a big fireball

+ The monster does something to Manhattan, like cover it in monster poop, that leaves it uninhabitable at the end of the movie.

+ Well …even more uninhabitable than it is now.

(edit… more)

+ At one point, the monster seems to die and we get a close-up of its face as it lies in the street. But then it comes back to life (i.e. I think that rumor is credible)

+ Ooooh… I just read a good post, so I am going to go with it. The monster evolves during the movie from a very blobby sea creature to a more well-defined, dangerous land creature 

(edit)

+ The thing eats whales. That’s why it has fangs and arms, and is amphibious. So it can surface and grab them.

Not Yet End of Crappy Job, Revisited

Well, OK it’s not over yet. I spoke with Smooth today, and decided not to change anything for now. I’m still holding out hope that my new/other job could come through. So this is an OK place for now.

Working with Dumb is painful, as usual, but I can just rise above that. Plus I have work for the new/other job I can do to keep me interested for the next little while.

Dumb is fixated on several design points, and just can’t let them go. I hope at the very least he was shaken and torn because I challenged him on those small points — nothing that I care much about — and has spent the last few days ruminating over them.

We have a meeting tomorrow, which could go either way. It will be interesting to see what Dumb comes up with this time.

End of Crappy Job, part II

So my new manager wrote from California; they aren’t going to fund the position I wanted after all, but may roll it up into a larger effort that’s going on around User Generated Content.

Which means that the job I wanted isn’t going to materialize, and I am simply stuck in the crappy job I have now,working with Smooth, Dumb and Nasty.

So it’s time to get the ball rolling on moving to another group. I’ll talk to the boss I wanted to have on Tuesday or Wednesday, and let her know that I’d like to find something else in the department to work on & see what she can to do help.

It’s going to be sticky, though, because for some reason my current boss, Smooth, wants to have me on the team — even though I don’t get invited to any team meetings, not included in any design discussions, or haven’t done any work for him in the last 2 months.

I think what happened was since I was working for one of the high-ups, it became  prestigious for him to have me on his team. Needless to say, he is a snivilling, ass-sucking little weasel.

There is also the possibility that they won’t be able to come up with a solution I like — either jerking me around on how long it takes to transition, or claiming that there’s no where for me to go after all. But right now the job market in my field is red hot, so it shouldn’t take long for me to find something quickly, although I’d have to camp out on Smooth’s crappy team for a few weeks.

I’m disappointed the budget isn’t coming through for the new job, but I’m also glad it’s coming to a resolution. I’ve been uncomfortable “flying under the radar” for the last couple of months. It will be good to get back to work.

Working with Dumb

I haven’t written as much about working with Dumb yet. I think I am just more fascinated with psychopathic personalities than stupid personalities.

I suppose that’s not fair to my co-worker Dumb (full name Dumb and Compulsive), because he is a real fruit loop himself. He seriously has a few wires crossed. But he compensates by being over-formal and compulsive.

Anyway, after I spoke with Smooth about this project, I went over to Dumb’s desk to touch base. I asked him to send me the documentation for the project. Basically, he just needed to send me two Word docs that he had on hand. One came from the business user, and the other was a rough draft that he had sent to them.

That was at 11:00. At 3:00, I finally went over to his desk and stood with him, smiling and polite, until he sent me the document. I think he was annoyed with me.

hehehehehe

Anyway, he’s working really hard to wrap his brain around this project, and it’s kind of embarrassing and painful to watch. The  thing that will save him is that the folks he needs to integrate with are really smart, so they’ll carry him. Then he can obsessively generate a mountain of pointless documentation, for which Smooth will be very impressed.

My goal is just to stay clear of it all for as long as I can. Because Dumb is obsessive and compulsive, he has bad anxiety issues. I’ve learned that I can play on those to -ah- incent him to stay away from me, too.

I’m just sad about being stuck on another crappy project with Smooth and Dumb. Fortunately, the “side project” that I’ve been doing is interesting work, so I’m willing to see how it plays out for a few more weeks.

Smooth and Dumb — Oh boy!

So my manager Smooth has called me back to a project. I’ll be working with my co-worker Dumb (full name, Dumb And Compulsive).

Smooth has been ignoring me for a couple of months, which has been really nice. But talking with him again just reminded me why I was such a rush to get off his team. He’s basically just crazy. Communication is really painful with him. All the technical facts enter his head, and then they get all jumbled up. If he can sit at his desk and work through it, he can eventually put together a big picture. But I think he really relies on his team to assemble the pieces for him, which he can then parrot to the folks in the business units.

Which, by the way, isn’t bad in itself. What makes it bad is that there’s a nastier side. He’s basically like a small, over-competitive child, playing with toys he doesn’t understand, and he gets frustrated and angry easily. Fortunately, the way he expresses his anger and frustration is by being — smooth. So he’s more of the assassin type than the “rager” type.

Six of one, half a dozen of the other. The advantage of working for an assassin is that everything moves much more slowly, and that gives me time to consider my moves. And get paid while doing it.

Edit: BTW I should mention it took me a long time to figure this out about him. His primary strategy is to set loose his two hounds, Dumb and Nasty, and let them do the dirty work of harassing and bullying.

I have to admit, though, that I do appreciate the leeway he’s given me for the past couple of months. I think he’s under the impression that I’ve been instructed from above to work on my side project, when in fact I’ve been told to work on the side project as my main work allows. However, one way or another, it’s been nice having this time and I am grateful he’s been looking the other way.

This time, one thing that struck me as I was compelled to make small talk about our Thanksgiving breaks, is that he has inappropriate eye contact. He was being friendly, but fixed me for the whole non-technical part of the conversation with a steady, non-blinking gaze. You know, the blank stare and flat affect. Go see “No Country for Old Men” if you’re not sure what I mean. I don’t think it was intentional; but, paired with some of the other behaviors I’ve seen from him, fits right in.

Edit: By contrast, when we got to the technical part of the conversation, he didn’t keep the steady, unblinking gaze, but was actually kind of flustered. Even frustrated. I’ve found in working with Smooth, Dumb and Nasty that they just hate it when I express opinions. I’m not supposed to do that. I’m supposed to sit there smiling and listen to their wonderful ideas. Which means, of course, that I am going to have lots and lots of opinions during the course of this project.

So it sort of fits in with what I’ve felt for a long time. That this guy is a low-grade psychopath who just happens to have a really, really good “mask.” He’s perfect for the large corporate world. I just need to get through the situation for another month or so, and the goal for December and January will be to land myself in a better situation.

Military Blackmail — The brass plays dirty pool

Now the Pentagon is responding to Congress’s withholding of funding for the (illegal) military action in Iraq by threatening to lay off 100,000 civilian workers. This is just pure and boldfaced blackmail. If you look at where those civilians are, you can bet they are in states and congressional districts the Democrats hold.

In a way, I’m glad that Bush and the Pentagon are showing their ugly face. With these psychopathic leaders, there is always an “unmasking” phase where the public face comes off, and the brutal, childish face is revealed. I think we’re deep in that phase with Bush, but I’m glad the military establishment is showing it’s face now, too.

I am of mixed feelings about their threat. On the one hand, divesting 100,000 people from the military-industrial complex would be a really good thing. On the other hand, it will cause a lot of hardship, because I don’t think the economy will be able to accommodate all those people.

However, if Bush and his military cronies pull this stunt and it drives the overall economy finally into recession, it would serve him right. One of my big worries is that the recession will hit in the next  administration, letting Bush skate on yet another mess he created.

I suppose, in the end, congress is much more moderate than Bush and his weasels in the Pentagon, so the funding will go through. But I’m glad they are at least playing this game of brinkmanship.   I think it’s good to challenge Bush and reveal just how bad he really is.

My Letter to Patty Murray

Patty Murray just sent around an email stating her opposition to the Mukasey appointment to Attorney General. I wrote back to show my support.

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Yay! I just received your email indicating you will not support Mukasey’s nomination, and I strongly support your position.

Not being empowered with, well, anything, I am able to take a stronger position. I honestly believe that this administration is a rogue, criminal organization that is destroying the basis of our society at the constitutional as well as a basic economic level.

Not to echo anyone, I do agree that this administration should be halted in its tracks until impeachment, domestic criminal and international war crime charges can be leveled at the President, Vice-president, and any of their responsible subordinates.

Let Bush continue to abuse the system fill these positions with interim appointments, or whatever political games he wants to play. Our best,strongest response is to stand on our values, show our opposition, and turn the slow wheels of justice.

I didn’t write before because I thought, why bother? But your email came as a note of hope that the actions the administration is taking in defiance of the constitution and the American public can be stopped.

Thank you!