Buffalo Wings

One thing I always noticed while working for NYS...everyone encouraged promotion, even your own boss, even if it meant leaving the agency for another one. Getting to a high grade level (which meant getting a bigger pension at retirement time) was like finding the holy grail. That said, if your management liked you, you still had to tip-toe around if you wanted to leave.

Am I the only ones not in love with the USA jersey? Yes, I'm a traditionalist and loved the ones they wore in Vancouver...simple & classic USA. But these don't blow me away at all.

Tough to hear, shrader. My prayers go out to you. My complaint (again, paling in comparison)...I have to drive from Albany to Binghamton *tomorrow* for work over the weekend. Two things bug me about this: 1. The latest installation of Snowmageddon. Not only will it be a close call as to when the snow starts to taper off and when I need to leave, but I have to drive I-88. I can only pray that road is in good, passable condition. That said, the farther away I get from Albany, the more it should be cleared up. And forget about everyone that lives in the Northeast and likes to complain about this. :angry: 2. It's Valentine's/President's Day weekend. The spousal unit will be traveling herself on Monday morning. I was hoping to really treat her to something nice for this weekend, but once my trip was scheduled, that plan was off. I already have about 10 hours with her on Sunday, provided I get back on time. If any part of my work has to be put off for a day, that cuts that time in half...at best.

Sorry to hear that, LGR. I've been there before...years ago, but I was there. The girl I was dating in college (dated only for a few months, but it felt like the real deal) let me go because she couldn't figure things out for herself. She actually had run into her ex and he had pushed her buttons enough to get her all confused, so I was the victim. We got together again a little over a year later...then got married 3 years after that and just celebrated 17 years this past October. Either she'll come around or something will work out for you - I firmly believe things happen for a reason, whether or not you like it at the time. My complaint - after the storm that hit us yesterday, I decided to wait until this morning to clear out the driveway. So, in order to get to work on time, I got up at 5am with about 4-5 hours of sleep - mostly because the aforementioned female was snoring most of the night (she does that when she has a cold) - ran the snowblower and did some shoveling. It's almost 4:00 now and I haven't gotten over the slow-motion, dragging feeling I've had all day. On top of that, my throat feels a tad raw. :cry:

That one reminded me of Superbowls past where one team had a decent start to the game, then the other would come back and blitz the H out of their opponent and win by 30. The only difference here was no decent start at all. This one was all Seattle, all the time. I wanted to throw a small shindig, but didn't get the time to get everything together. Good thing...

I learned quickly years ago that you learn best when you're thrown into the fire and almost forced to do things on your own. In your case, it's probably hard to do if she's useless. I really can't give an ultimatum, since there are three people in my group - my boss, him, and myself. I gave him some "homework" last week and told him I'd give him very little help and that he should run with everything. What happens? He starts asking me stuff and I felt compelled to answer. Next time, I'm telling him he gets no help and I won't answer any questions...not even about the weather. We're all techie geeks, but he's even more geekish than us. I like the stuff I work with, but it's not my life (hence my presence on this board). He starts talking to me about techie crap I don't care about and it makes me want to smack him. Dude...shut up, get some work done, and let me get some work done at the same time. At least today, I get to hide in our lab for a few hours and have a legit reason for doing so. EDIT: Just yesterday, a system admin job opened up and was posted, which is stuff that this guy is clearly better at. I...um...happened to mention that they were refilling that job. He went to look at it (with me hoping he'd apply for it), but then said he knows a few people who would be interested. :wallbash:

Venting time... I've decided that my boss has swung & missed on his last two hires (not including me, of course!). My current colleague has no sense of when to shut up. I try to answer his questions when he needs them, but every time he's given a project, he starts asking me questions about how he should do it every time he has new information. I think I told him about 7,936 times "It's your project, you decide how you want to do it." Again, I don't mind answering questions about who to contact, how to get the ball rolling, or how we do things, but I don't need to be interrupted every 3 minutes when he has an idea. Dude...just do it. I can't tell you how many times I learned by just making a decision and rolling with it. Perhaps my expectations are too high. When I left working for NYS, I thought I'd run into less of the lazy and incompetent. Apparently, I was wrong.

I got the first bout when I was about 33-34 years old (I'm 42 now)...mild, but it presented as a pain in my mid-back and the hive-looking things there around to my chest. I had chicken pox when I was about 5-6 years old, so I knew it was possible. The pain wasn't going away, so the doc recognized it as shingles right away and gave me a chalky horse pill that got rid of it. Luckily, it wasn't bad, but I was definitely very uncomfortable, bordering on bringing-me-to-tears pain. My complaint: Albany-area's weather has been messed up. A foot of snow a week ago, almost 60 degrees three days later, when that was "alleviated" by single-digit temps for two-plus days. My walkway and driveway could easily pass for the surface inside FNC and regular ice-melter won't work in these temps. I almost broke my leg this morning taking the dogs out and they have a hard time doing their business - imagine a shih-tzu's legs slipping out from underneath him as he's doing a #2. :huh:

I've been off of work since December 24th until today. Let's just say I'd rather go back on vacation.

I seem to have several these days, so I'll highlight the important ones... - People who bitch and moan about winter and live in the Northeast. For God's sake, stop whining about it...if you hate snow & cold so much, move to Florida. - I seem to have bad luck with co-workers...I think the guy I work with is just cheap. He wouldn't donate to an annual holiday campaign (not even $1), he wouldn't help buy gifts for our Adopt-A-Family program unless he got the money up front, and he doesn't fill the shared company vehicle with gas if the needle is touching "E" when he's had the car all day. He must have gotten burned with a reimbursement issue at an old job or something. If he's destitute and broke, just say so...he loves to beat around the bush with sarcasm when we ask him about this stuff, too. - My sciatica seems to have returned and I have to go back to physical therapy. I'd been doing all of the exercises they gave me and the pain seemed to be on its way out, but the pain and uncomfortable-ness came back right after Thanksgiving. I put off seeing the doctor long enough and he told me today to go back to PT. I know it's for the right reason, but I just wish the pain would stop. If it was happening all the time, that would be one thing...it only happens when I sit and when I'm driving. I hope that's it. I'm taking time off of work during the holidays, so maybe I'll be less ornery come January. :beer:

Nope...very skinny, actually. I think he was joking the whole time, but he was clearly avoiding the topic as if he didn't want to donate.

I love Christmas and that time of year, but I can't stand people celebrating it in early November. It's as if people forget about Thanksgiving (I know - it's all about the stores and shopping and that crap, but it still ticks me off). On that note, my company does a Holiday Sharing drive each year starting around this time. Every employee is encouraged to donate money, which will go towards local charities, organizations who help the needy, etc. On top of that, the company will donate an extra $100 to the program for each department that shows 100% participation (that is, every member of that department donates *something*). There are three people in my department. My boss and I have already contributed. The 3rd guy is refusing to do so. I don't know him THAT well, but he's been working here since April and it's not like he was jobless before that he's just getting out of debt or anything. He won't contribute a dollar. I asked him if even $5 would really break him and the conversation went something like this... Him: Hey, that $5 is my breakfast budget for the week. Do you want me to starve? Me: What about those who are already starving? Him: You mean like me around 3:00 every day? Dude...are you F***KING SERIOUS?!???!?!

Great news, weave! I'm with shrader on the idiot driver thing. I was stopped at a yield yesterday waiting for a stream of cars to come out of our office complex lot directly onto the highway, when the tool behind me decided to cut out from behind me because he couldn't wait the extra 5 seconds for the oncoming jeep to pass (nobody behind that jeep as far as I could tell, btw). We merged onto the highway and I passed him less than a half mile after the merge. <_< Even worse than that, however, is the lack of proper grammar & punctuation anymore. Just this morning, a high-ranking executive in my company sent an email to the entire staff with two of these errors. For example, "spending time with loved one's" and "supporting our troop's". I can't count how many times people I work with make this mistake. It's a plural form of the word, not a possessive form. One of my former co-workers debated this topic with me once, saying the apostrophe in that use of the particular word "just looked better". Dude - that doesn't make it right. :wallbash:

Everyone's overly-disgusting love for the Red Sox. I hope everyone realizes they are not the underdogs anymore and don't play second fiddle to the Yankees like they did for years. This is not 2004 anymore...let's not love them because they're the anti-Yankees. (Full disclosure...I am a Yankees fan, so watching them win did sting a little, but I sincerely always try to keep an open mind and try not to judge all things baseball with my pinstripe-colored glasses) David Ortiz is treated like a God in Boston (and probably most of the country outside of NYC). I'd have no problem with that if his name didn't show up on a list of players who tested positive for some PED. Granted, that was 10 years ago, but this was brought up in 2009 and he vowed to show us the proof that he didn't take anything. We've yet to hear from him about that since then and the suspicion is always going to be there for me.

So...when does Miller go?

I've been away for a while, but it really is a bit heavy in here, as has been noted. My thoughts and prayers go out to everyone affected by cancer and the govt shutdown, though the shutdown appears to temporarily be over. My complaint (though pale in comparison)...sciatica still sucks. It hurts me only when I'm sitting and driving and I'll be headed to Washington, DC in the car tomorrow (for a wedding on Saturday). A total of 6+ hours, but I'll have a brief stop in Philly to pick up the wife. I then drive back on Sunday afternoon. I'll be stocking up on aleve & ibuprofen. Second complaint...fleas. My younger dog picked them up from my brother-in-law's dog and has become very sensitive to them. He itches an awful lot, so we have Terminix come every few months to spray the house and kill what's around.

The wife left town for work on Monday morning and will be back next Friday. It was supposed to be 2 weeks away, 2 weeks home. Well, they changed it today, so now she flies to Toronto the Monday after she comes home. What sucks? We're going to a wedding in VA the following weekend and she'll have to fly from TO to some airport in the DC area where I pick her up, then fly back to TO on that Sunday.

This is the key point for me...they don't know what they want to get out of this fight, but they want to win it. Bass ackwards. The lack of common sense in our government never ceases to amaze me. If you vote for an incumbent in the next election, punch yourself in the face.

Why do some people just generally think so highly of themselves that they are completely blinded to their arrogance? No, I'm not talking about Congress...I'm referring to co-workers. One guy in my group constantly talks about how others don't understand that our work is more important than anything else in the company. For the first month, I thought he was simply joking and making light of things. Since then, it's hard to tell if he's joking or serious. I think part of him is serious and he really thinks what he does is vastly more important than anyone else's work. Even though I do believe that my work is important, I don't think I'm the most important thing on the planet. This guy does.

The latest late-night work last night went longer than it should have. This isn't uncommon for my job these days, but we had to wait almost 90 minutes for one of our systems to shut down some processes and restart them. For those not familiar enough, normally, this would take 10 minutes...tops. During the whole time, our system admin was getting really punchy and making no sense...I came to realize that he hadn't slept since Monday night and he was probably on his 20th Red Bull. Then this morning, our other system admins blamed myself and our firewall admin because we didn't use the proper procedure to contact them overnight when we were waiting...even though we called everyone's cell phone and sent hi-priority emails. All calls went immediately to voice mail - meaning they didn't even have their phones turned on.

For the most part, I can tolerate it because it only is irritating when I sit. However, my job is IT and I sit at a PC for a living. I also drive around town a lot, plus my boot camp class seems to aggravate it. I've already started putting my wallet in my front pocket and doing what I can to keep my right leg extended.

One word...sciatica. Of course, it could be tendonitis in the back of my knee or a strained hamstring that's referring pain to other parts of my leg. Whatever it is...it sucks.

I was that bad yesterday, if not worse. I woke up between 1:30 and 2:00am yesterday morning and dozed in & out until my alarm went off. I paid for it all day long...dragging, needed serious caffeine, and totally dismissed any workout plans I had for the evening. My complaint - I must be cursed...the new co-worker of mine who replaced the one that had no common sense is almost the exact opposite. He's a server administrator by trade who's doing a job supporting a network. At least he has some experience and intelligence (unlike the last guy), but one of his favorite trades is to tell me how stupid or silly something is. When I correct him and tell him how things really should be, I get scoffed at and told that it doesn't make sense...yet he'll comply and configure the router the way we have been for many moons. Either it's my expectation of co-workers or I really am being tortured for no apparent reason.

I do the same stair climb in Albany every year. It usually takes me about 12 floors (out of 42) for me to ask myself why I keep doing this, but the cause is worth it. Good luck! One thing I do a lot is golf. I used to be playing 3-4 times a week...every Saturday, most Sundays, every Monday night, and sprinkle in a tournament here & there. I would always walk and carry my clubs because I wanted the exercise. I've officially converted to a push cart because of the neck & upper back issues, but I think all of that walking for a 4-year period took its toll. I've slowed down in the past year or so only because I have a different job w/o much time off. All of this is great advice. I think I've dropped my stress level recently because I came to the conclusion that the little things I always worried about really weren't that important in the grand scheme of things. God bless your friend's cousin...my thoughts and prayers will be with him.

Latest gripe (btw, I love this thread...it allows me to vent so that my wife and friends don't bear the brunt of it)... I'll be 42 years old in a little over a month and my body is starting to rebel against me - probably due to all of the increased exercising since January. My hamstring seems to be the latest issue...it gets extremely tight after I sit for a while, either at work or driving. In addition, my left tricep/shoulder area is feeling pain when I move my arm in the right way. This is all after I've had bicep tendonitis, a quad muscle strain, and upper back/neck muscle spasms in a period of 4 years. The good part is that the PT who looked at my hamstring found the tender spot where the hammy & gluteus meet. So, she suggested my wife massage my ass. I'm ok with that...provided she'll comply. :flirt: