Office Monkey

Everybody needs some monkey sometime

Review

I’m filling out my annual review form at work. We have to fill it out by EOD today, according to management, so they can have “calibration meetings.” They have to be sure not to give us a compliment unless everyone else agrees I deserve that compliment… (The real story is even more sordid. Stack ranking, bah.)

I also need to fill out Manager Feedback. I just got stuck on one question:

“My Manager ensures that others, including senior management, are aware of my contributions.”

I can choose Strong Agree, Agree, Neither Agree Nor Disagree, Disagree, Strongly Disagree, or Not Applicable.

There isn’t an option for, “I don’t know yet.” You see, I’ll be able to tell how well my managed informed senior management regarding my contributions, when I see a raise or promotion — in September. I don’t know how good she is at marketing me; can I trade her in for a new publicist? Maybe Paris Hilton’s?

What’s the point of asking me a question I don’t have a clue what the answer is, but have very strong feelings on?

Filled under: Office By: Andrew Tags: ,
Posted on: June 8, 2007 No Comments »

Remote Desktop to Vista on alternate port

I installed Vista Ultimate on my home machine. Why? I had installed RC2 almost 8 months ago, and it stopped working last week. šŸ™‚

Now, I have an interesting setup to allow me to Remote Desktop to sevetral of my home PCs through my one firewall (usually from work). I use No-IpĀ (the free version) to publish my dynamic ip publicly. I then have my wonderful SOHO Netgear Firewall setup to port forward to different machines — so from my one IP, I expose multiple RDP connections.

My older and less fancy router would allow me to directly route from one public port to a machine’s different private port; this router just allows me to expose a port. So, I had to change my mechanism: I alter the port remote desktop listens on for each machine! It was easy on XP, but on Vista…

It turns out that the Firewall rules for Windows Vista are hardcoded for port 3389. So even if you change the port in the registry so that your RDP listening port is another value, the Firewall RDP rules only exist for 3389 — and that port value can’t be edited. Sure, you can add a new rule, but that offended by sensibilities.

So, instead, I went through my registry and hopefully got all the appropriate values, scanning for “3389”, and now I’m going to restart my system and see if it worked. I’ll grumble later if it doesn’t.

Filled under: Day-to-Day, Song By: Andrew Tags: ,
Posted on: June 4, 2007 No Comments »

LOWER GAS PRICES!

THIS WILL REALLY WORK!

I know you’ve all received the emails telling you not to buy gas on a certain day, and you’re all well aware of how just plain dumb that is. My plan is far, far better, and is GUARANTEED to affect how much you SPEND on GAS.

The most recent spin is that you should not buy gas from EXXON and MOBIL, as they’re the two most profitable oil companies, and so we should only buy from their competitors, so that EXXON and MOBIL will LOWER THEIR GAS PRICES, and the other companies will follow suit. Supply and demand and a bit of logic puts that one to rest. My plan is even better, and punishes ALL GAS COMPANIES, and will surely SHOW THEM we mean BUSINESS!

What are you PAYING at the PUMP? In my neighborhood, gas prices are nearing FOUR DOLLARS A GALLON! Inflation doesn’t cover that much of a change! Oil companies take ANY EXCUSE to RAISE PRICES, from storm damage from Katrina to unrest in the MIDDLE EAST. However, they don’t then lower the prices when the crisis has passed.

We have to SHOW THE OIL COMPANIES WHO’S THE BOSS!

The days of EIGHTY-NINE CENT GAS may be long gone, but we can certainly aim forĀ ONE-FIFTY A GALLON!

Here’s how!

My car takes almost 16 gallons of gasoline to fill the tank. At FOUR DOLLARS A GALLON that’s SIXTY-FOUR dollars to fill up my car. If gas prices were only ONE-FIFTY a gallon, it would only cost me $24 to fill up my TANK. I’d SAVE FORTY DOLLARS PER TANK OF GAS!

We need to show the OIL COMPANIES that we have better things to do with that MONEY.

We need to UNITE and show OUR STRENGTH.

Look at HOW MUCH YOU CAN SAVE each week on gas if it only cost $1.50 per GALLON. Get a piece of paper out and do the math. Would you SAVE THIRTY DOLLARS? Forty dollars? Is your regular commuter vehicle a personal jet, and you’d SAVE HUNDREDS?

Here’s what you should do with that MONEY YOU’RE THROWING AWAY!

Take the amount you would save per tank of gas, and send it to me. Comment below for my address. I’ll gather up all the money, and TAKE THE FIGHT TO THE OIL COMPANIES. I will PERSONALLY go and SHOW THEM how we feel, and HOW MUCH WE WANT BACK. Together, we can force them to ACTION.

LOWER GAS PRICES!

Filled under: Day-to-Day, Living By: Andrew Tags: , ,
Posted on: May 14, 2007 4 Comments »

Anonymous Letter: To The Teenage Girl Who Tried to Drag Race Me Tonight

Dear Teenie Bopper:

Congratulations are in order! You apparently have a new driver’s license. With that license comes a great deal of fun, and a lot of responsibility. However, there are certain things that they didn’t teach you in driver’s ed.

First of all, my apparent air of casual disdain is not actually an attempt to seem “hip,” “cool,” or otherwise encourage you to associate with me. It’s not an air at all — I really don’t care. I’m happily married, you look twelve years old to me, and I only “pulled up alongside” you because that’s where the stop line for the traffic light was.

Second, pulling up next to you is not an invitation to race. It’s what happens at a red light. I didn’t even notice what color hair you have, whether you were pretty or not, or even if your passenger was male or female. It’s a complete accident, it might happen again, and hopefully I won’t need to write you another letter.

Third, swerving back and forth in your lane is a sign that you’re an idiot and shouldn’t be allowed to drive, not an indication of how good a time you’re having. Tell you passenger very quietly, “Whee” if you really feel the need.

Fourth, if your car’s zero-to-60 time is only measured in whole seconds, because no one cares whether it does it in 14.5 seconds or 14.6, don’t bother revving your engine at the car next to you as an invitation to race. You’ll verge on losing to a Prius, much less an actual car.

Fifth, that was my AudiĀ that smoked your mom’s Toyota sedan without trying.

Ā 

Sincerely,

X

Mr. Anonymous

Filled under: Day-to-Day, Living By: Andrew Tags: ,
Posted on: May 10, 2007 3 Comments »

Anonymous Letter: To “National Deed Service”

Dear National Deed Service:

In the age of spam and selling of false hopes, it’s a distinct honor and privilege to receive an actual snail mail letter from a business that actually has a product to sell. Having identified me as a recent home buyer, you are kind enough to provide me with the opportunity to buy a copy of my deed to the property I’ve purchased from you, a disinterested third party, rather than obtaining one directly from my local County Auditor.

On most occasions when a company offers to sell me something through the mail, it’s easily identifiable that they wish to prey on the dumb and the lazy. In this case, however, you are courteous enough to eliminate the “dumb” from accepting your offer. In large print, you tell the recipient of your sales pitch that they can go and accomplish the same thing you’re offering to do — for free!

You’ve made a business out of selling something free to the lazy — I would almost like to buy your mailing list, solely so that I can profit from their laziness as well.

However, unless you decide to sell that list, know that I’m not yet QUITE that lazy, and please refrain from offering to sell me a copy of my own marriage license, as well.

Sincerely,

X

Mr. Anonymous

Filled under: Day-to-Day By: Andrew Tags: ,
Posted on: May 10, 2007 1 Comment »

Mashed potatoes

I was going to “cook” tonight — nothing too fancy, as it was just for myself, but I had some time available, so why not?

I started poking around the kitchen, eliminating items — I’m short a few staples, so I can’t make some dishes I’d like to — and had just about given up and defaulted to “microwave burritos” when I saw… Mashed Potatoes!

Okay, so they were mashed-potato-flakes. Not really potatoes, and definitely not yet mashed. I took ’em down, and checked to make sure I had everything… no milk. Milk goes bad, Mandrina is allergic, so we don’t tend to stock milk in the house. Okay, fine. I go to put the box in the pantry, and for a moment, just a moment, I wonder if I could use the non dairy creamer to prepare the microwave potato flakes.

Then I get the microwave burritos out of the freezer.

Filled under: Day-to-Day By: Andrew Tags: ,
Posted on: May 1, 2007 3 Comments »

Oh, no! Snow!

I honestly don’t understand Seattlites inability to handle a bit of snow. The moment that some of the white stuff starts coming down, they shut down, just as they do when the sun comes out or we get rain.

I left work around 19:30 last night, as I was trying to finish up some work. I was hearing all these horror stories on the radio about how people have been stuck on the roads for five and six hours.

I got home, including stopping at a drug store and grocery store, in under an hour and a half. What, you may ask, was the difference?

I was smart enough to know NOT to get on the bleeding highway with the five hour backup! Learn where you live, people!

Filled under: Day-to-Day By: Andrew Tags: , ,
Posted on: March 1, 2007 No Comments »

Math error

I’m sorting through wedding response cards (oh, what fun!). It’s not that bad; given that I’m inviting people to what amounts to a destination wedding, a roughly 50% acceptance rate is okay in my book — most of the people who couldn’t come I’m not terribly surprised — other, closer friends weddings, the cost of airfare, etc.

But as I’m going through the invitations, there’s this nagging thought at the back of my head: this stack is really small.

Then I figured out why, and I will share my brilliance with you.

Read more

Filled under: Woman By: Andrew Tags: , , ,
Posted on: February 19, 2007 1 Comment »
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