Addroc

The End

2006-07-07T19:55:00.000-06:00

I started today assuming that it would be a very quiet day where I would post 3 different times, but this is Addroc and things never happen as they should. The day started with the head monkey asking me to come back down and talk to him before I did anything else. Through our meeting the Head Monkey told me that either the White Witch was going to step down or he was going to leave the business and sell it, yeah right I think we have heard that one before.

During the conversation The Head Monkey said “Did you hear about The Nutty Professor?” I hadn’t so I said “no, but what’s going on”. He proceeded to tell me that the Nutty Professor had told Smart that Addroc was in a bad financial situation and Smart told the Graphic Arts guy that he shouldn’t take the job because of this. The Head Monkey proceeded to tell me that The Nutty Professor telling Smart this information was like a lawyer breaching confidence with a client. He was extremely up set with The White Witch for not firing him right away.

Now there are two things that popped into my head as he was talking about this. 1st I know for a fact the nutty professor would never say anything like this to smart. 2nd I know if anyone it was my fault that smart knew about the guy coming back and the financial situation. So I was left with a dilemma do I walk away and not say anything or do I tell him that it was me who said something.

I couldn’t just sit there and let the Nutty Professor take the fall and have him lose his job so I told the Head Monkey that I’m pretty sure it was my fault and highly doubt The Nutty Professor would ever say anything about the poor financial situation. The Head Monkey of course dismissed what I said and told me that The Graphics guy told him that it was the Nutty Professor who told Smart.

I walked away from the meeting and honestly I was getting more and more pissed about the Nutty Professor losing his job over something he didn’t do. I decided I would tell Bill about how I thought it was me who tipped smart off and how I didn’t think it was the Nutty Professor. He at least believed me and said he didn’t think The Nutty Professor would have done this. But he said that we will never know for sure because nobody can talk to Smart. I told Bill that I would call smart today and ask him point blank if the Nutty Professor had told him about the bad Financial Situation. Bill said that would probably help The Nutty Professor and if I don’t mind it would be a good thing.

So I called smart and left him a message and I emailed him. Smart called me back and said no The Nutty Professor has never said anything but good things about Addroc. Smart also told me that he would never recommend his worst enemy to work at Addroc (which I agree, and will come into play later on in the story). Of course smart said these things a little more colorfully then I am.

I then pulled Bill into another meeting and told him that The Nutty Professor had nothing to do with what Smart told the Graphics guy. In fact, I told Bill, Smart would never recommend anyone to work here. To which Bill said he could understand why Smart would say this. I told him that if he wanted me to I would even go and talk to the White Witch about this.

Bill went into the White Witches office and told her that The Nutty Professor was not involved in this at all. She of course was happy to here this and proceeded to call the Nutty Professor into her office and tell him everything. As a side note here I was hoping the Nutty Professor would here nothing about this.

As you can imagine the Nutty Professor was really pissed at the Head Monkey for making those allegations. The Nutty Professor went down to talk to the Head Monkey in a closed door meeting, to which I thought was the end for the Nutty Professor.

As I was getting ready to go on my walk I saw the Nutty Professor sitting at his desk going through his desk. To me it looked like he was going through his desk the last time and was getting ready to leave for good. This is when I called Smart for the 2nd time today, I wanted to warn him that he was probably going to have to call the nutty professor and let him know that he had nothing to do with all of this.

I got back from lunch and I asked Bill what was going on. Bill told me about how the White Witch had told the nutty professor about the allegations about him and how I had come forward disputing these allegations and nothing was going to happen to him because of this.

Now during all this I was actually trying to do some work too. One of the odd things about my last day, oh wait my entire last day was odd, was that I was to take my computer and turn it into another graphic arts computer for someone they had made an offer to but yet still hadn’t gotten back to them yet, more on this story later.

During all this I was talking to Melman who said she really wanted to get out of Addroc and she was going to get her resume ready and was trying to get a list of references together. She went on to tell me how she doesn’t really know anybody here and Baby Jack Jack was her only really good reference. Taking the philosophy of not wanting your worst enemy to work at Addroc I told Melman she could use me as a reference.

The end of the day came about 3:00 PM, and I decided to make my rounds and say goodbye. I started off by saying goodbye to Melman who actually started crying. She said it was because she was so overwhelmed with being the only one left at Addroc, out of myself, baby jack jack and smart. I guess she thought Smart and her were still good friends.

Of course I went around to everyone else and everyone was really nice and congratulated me and wished me luck, it was actually really nice. I had to interrupt the Nutty Professor and The White Witch to say goodbye though. The White Witch actually gave me a hug goodbye and squished her boobs against me, actually I think that is a draw back to hugging any female with big boobs but all I could think about was the Grand Canyon made of Jello.

She then said thank you for coming clean about the incident with The nutty professor and how it really helped her Bill and the Nutty Professor, and how thankful she was. I even saw a tear come out of the White Witches eye right then.

To end the day just as I was about to leave the Professor told me that the Graphic Arts person, yes that’s a second one, turned them down and was not going to come here to work. I guess that’s one more day of my life wasted at Addroc.

I thought about summary post about my experiences at Addroc, but decided that in one day I got a snap shot of what it was like for 2 years at that place. Back Stabbing, Lying and Tears. I think for me this sums up what Addroc is and what it will always be.

Like smart I thank all of you for reading, it has been really fun. I also would like to thank Smart for being my friend and getting me out of jail.

THE END

Smarter

Smarts Story Ending Post

2006-07-07T07:55:00.000-06:00

With Dumber becoming Smarter and moving over here with me at this new company our Addroc blog has come to an end. We started this blog on July 7th of 2005 and it is amazing that the last post from Dumber will end it all today on exactly the same day one year later. Seems like a fitting end to a great book.

As you all remember it started with the frustration that Dumber and I felt at Addroc. This blog became a way for us to get the crap of the day off our shoulders. As we wrote it we released it to the blog and to you for the reading. Sometimes it was sad stuff, sometimes we were angry, and sometimes everyone could laugh but in the end it was a way for Dumber and I to cope with the characters that made up Addroc.

For those of you that have read this from the beginning and kept with it I hope it comes as a good ending as every book should end with the main characters moving on to a better life. The rest of the Addroc characters we all know will continue their path of stupidity as they did before Dumber and I were there. Most likely a new Dumb and Dumber will be hired to take our places and the cycle will repeat itself. I know Dumber and I will have to discuss what we want to do with our writings. Initially we will most likely keep them residing in our blog until such time as we deem necessary to delete it. We ponder about sending it to publishers and who knows maybe one of them would pick it up and people could buy it at the local bookstore someday and read about the two crazy co-workers lives.

I have had to do some thinking about how I wanted this post to end. I initially posted my last post when I became Smarter but since I had posted a couple time and felt that with Dumber moving on and the end I wanted to clear and note some final thoughts. In the end I would like to address each character but in reality there are only four people to address.

First is the Head Monkey. The man that lives life believing the best way to make a sale is with Reverse Honesty. I can’t remember if we covered this theory of his in a post or not so I will briefly touch on it now. Reverse Honesty is lying, how is that for a Readers Digest version? I think he not only used Reverse honesty with making sales but in the way he treated everyone around him. I think he lived it with lying to his wife, to his clients and customers, and to himself. He is a person I never respected and often found myself trying to navigate the halls and not cross paths with any more then necessary.

Second is “The CEO”. She is completely over her head with no business sense at all. She flounders in her stupidity and uses negative comments, belittling tactics, and undermining techniques to all around her to hide her ignorance of any subject. This is the same model most bullies use in the world. If it wasn’t for her game of spider, afternoon naps, and drug concoctions she would most certainly have nothing to do.

Third is our Bill. Bill could easily be names Kermit as he is just a puppet of “The CEO”. He is at this point just trying to make it through another couple years of work and retire. His age, degrading health, and for the most part lack of true leadership skill makes him nearly un-hirable. “The CEO” and Head Monkey both know this and pulls the strings for Bill to do their dirty work. Bill tries to play it off as they are nuts and puts them, “The CEO” and Head Monkey, down with his own underhanded comments so he looks like the good guy to the lower workers but people have figured him out and that is now beginning to collapse on him. He deserves to work there and be their puppet as he is in reality not much different himself.

Fourth is really only mentioned as he is caught in this. That is The Nutty Professor. The Nutty Professor is a consultant that works for him self and like most small businesses have one major client that they do 80% of the work for The Nutty Professor has Addroc. As he and his wife have become both my friend and a personal computer client for me I feel his pain. The last time I was at their house I looked over his newest brochure he was creating to try and get more work. He and his wife both asked me about any other clients I might have or know for them to grow work. In one sentence from his wife she said The Nutty Professor would like to find a good place to work also as she was talking about my new company. I hope he can find that growth and eventually remove himself from Addroc.

I could rattle on for hours on all these people, ohh wait that is what this blog did for a year. A blog that we thought would only last a couple weeks and we would tire of it or run out of things to post on. We were wrong and could post on this for years to come. I only wish I had started it a couple years earlier. I am still proud of it though and will miss it some but it is time to move on. I really do not ever see myself working for such a place again but if I do I will defiantly use it as a tool to release stress again.

I would like to thank all the people that have read it and commented on Addroc this last year. I know I talk for both Dumber and I when I say WE loved your comments, insight, humor and wisdom. We even talked about who got the most comments or sometimes who even got A comment to a post. In a way you all became a part of Addroc with us an I hope you all carry one piece of advice from me when I say “If you ever find yourself working for a place like Addroc, blog it and get out as soon as possible.”

Thanks to all
Smart (aka Dumb)

High turnover

2006-07-06T08:59:00.000-06:00

Once again everything was very quiet yesterday, I hope the dust has settled until after I leave. One of the funniest parts about this week though is to sit and watch the professor get ready to take over the management of the computer department. The professor is a fairly intelligent man and understands a lot about business, but he does not have a clue about how an IT department should work or even what goes on in one.

He has been bombarding me with all sorts of questions, these questions range from basic networking questions to how I think the department should be structured. He keeps telling me to write everything down or he will forget. He actually asked me to write down how to shut down the server. He also asked me to write down how to add and delete a user to the server. Now I have 2 problems with this: 1st adding and deleting a user is actually a fairly complicated process and I am sure I would miss steps when writing it down. 2nd I had never added or deleted a user until smart left Addroc and I had to learn through the school of hard knocks. Am I really the best person to be teaching him how to do this? I don’t think so, but yet the Professor thinks I am.

One of the things Addroc wanted me to do before I left was updating the Accounting software we use. I didn’t think it would be a big deal at all so I said sure. I started looking over the installation instructions and started to realize this would be a much bigger pain then I ever thought it would be. I emailed smart to see if there was any issues I should know about before I ran the update. About 10 minutes later I get an actual phone call from smart saying don’t do it. He called to warn me that I would end up screwing up the entire system and would end up creating tons of work for my last 3 days. Thanks Smart for the warning!!! In case your wondering there is no way I’m doing this install, I’ll save it for the next sucker.

Melman told me that today is the day the new guy is going to be fired. I don’t know if I believe her or not but it has made me think about Addroc and the upstairs finance department. There are 5 different positions upstairs, of which in the past year 5 people have left or were forced to leave these positions, that is if new guy is fired. First Baby Jack Jack left, and then Marlin walked out one day without telling anyone. Next came Smart and in a couple of days I will be gone. And finally it’s only a matter of time that new guy is canned. The most senior person up here is Bill who has been here about 5 years and then follows Melman who is coming up on 3 years.

Counselor Troy, HR lady, informed me yesterday that she turned in her resignation and she is moving on to be a stay at home mom. If any one is interested in working at Addroc there are a few openings.

One more employee story gone bad for you. Last week I heard a rumor that a guy that used to work here was thinking about coming back to Addroc. This person is a friend of Smart’s so I emailed Smart to find out what was going on and why this guy would come back to Addroc. Smart talked to him found out he was coming back based on a big fat raise and the Skipper being his boss. Smart being the friend he is gave him a stern warning about the financial situation and the fact the Skipper isn’t going to last. I found out yesterday that this guy decided to stay at his current employer and not coming back to Addroc. Once again good job Smart!!!

Dumber

Bottle Caps

2006-07-05T07:42:00.000-06:00

Monday was an extremely quiet day, I’m guessing they are letting some of the dust settle from last week, also about ¾ of the people took the day off so they could have a 4 day weekend. I felt like the dog that had been beaten one too many times though, I kept looking over my shoulder waiting for something to happen.

Since nothing happened on Monday I thought I would share with you a funny story that happened last week. Smart and I were emailing back and forth when he told me that his company and the one I’m moving to has done work in the past for Addroc and still has some settings in their system for when they did work. Well a light went off in my head that there are comments throughout Addrocs main program with the beginning of ffi, these are the same initials of my new company (abbreviations of company may have been changed to protect the innocent). I now remember Bill telling me they had a company doing some work on their program right before I started but they were kind of expensive. It’s the same company I’m going to work for now.

Yesterday was of course the 4th of July which means I didn’t have to come to work, so automatically it’s a good day. Monday we went to the store and told the kids to pick out some candy for the fireworks, it’s a nice time killer while we wait. Being the kid I am I also got to pick a box out, and guess what I picked…..that’s right bottle caps.

Now we get there and we met some friends and had my wife’s family with us. Its time to pull out the candy and I realized my error, everyone expected me to share my candy. First it was my brother in-law then some of the kids. I then made a mistake and put the bottle caps down and one of our friend’s kids picked the box up and started to carry it around. All of a sudden every kid in our group, 10 in all, was eating some of MY bottle caps. Being the adult I could not just walk up push her down and take the bottle caps back, that and her dad works at the sheriffs department and I’m pretty sure he would have arrested me. In the end they ate all my bottle caps and I was left with an empty box saying “Oh that’s ok”.

Dumber

VP of what?

2006-07-03T07:38:00.000-06:00

I was offered to keep my job again on Friday. This time no more money was thrown out to me it was a change in management. The Professor came pulled me into a conference room a glow with power after talking to the White Witch. He asked me “Would you like to stay if I was your manager?” I said “That’s really nice but no thank you.” Notice this time I didn’t wait to talk to my wife.

He went on to tell me that not only was he going to help interview for the IT position he was going to be the manager of that position now, not Bill anymore. The professor continued to tell me that he then asked her what his new title would be. The White Witch then mentioned two words that are more important to the professor then air itself, “How about the VP of Operations.” He being the level headed person he is said “How about you think about that over the weekend and if you still think that’s a good idea you let me know Monday.” Any votes if she still thinks a good idea?

Through our conversation I told the professor that I thought the White Witch was going to get rid of Bill soon. The professor turned right around and said yes she mentioned that to me. Once again the Professor being very level headed asked her if Bill still had value in the accounting department. To which she said yes. So for now Bill stays.

If I didn’t only have 4 posts left I would probably re-name the professor to Edmund. I have been amazed at how quickly he will join the White Witch’s side for some little pieces of candy. I will not have a post for tomorrow as it is the 4th of July.

The professor was on cloud nine all day dreaming about his new job title. I wanted to look at him and ask him “What do you think you would be VP of? Jack shit is what you would be VP of I tell you.” The Professor officially can never find out about the Blog.

The penguins took me out to lunch Friday and it was fairly uneventful, one of the penguins father is very sick and he got a call from his mother asking him to come home while we were at lunch. One thing I noticed was how much these guys looked at the ladies. Now I’m not saying looking at a nice looking lady is bad, but when you say hey penguin check her out and everyone’s head turns, you might have crossed the line.

I like Highlanders idea for the mistletoe, I’m going to have to think about it.

In case you’re wondering the White Witch is wearing a brown shirt that is see thru shirt and a black bra.

Dumber

Power struggles

2006-06-30T07:18:00.000-06:00

The White Witch again started my day off with calling me into her office, no smartass not for a lap dance, printer problems. I easily fixed her printer problems and she looked at me and said:

WW: “Are you ready to talk to me”
ME: “Sure, My wife and I agree that its time for me to move on”
WW: “Well we will be sad to see you go. Now before you leave I will need you to write up a job description of what we need”
ME: “OK”

I quickly left and started thinking what in the world am I going to write. I thought I would get some help from Smart, as it turns out all of these very important job points come from him, I don’t see a need to add any.
1) Ability to keep a straight face while the Jello Canyon is bent over you while you work on her PC.
2) Someone who enjoys the smell of cheap perfume on old women.
3) Must be able to work in a MCSE (Multiple personality, Chaotic, Secureless Environment)
4) Must be older and not have kids or a wife they enjoy being with so family outings don't interrupt the scheduled MUST work hours.
5) Eating lunch at 11:30 sharp cannot be a problem as changing from this time might need to have excessive paperwork filled out and approved.
6) We prefer stupid people we can take advantage of and will not talk back or try to change the business model.
7) To act Dumb and Naive a huge Plus
8) Ability to know when donuts are carried in downstairs even with thesmell of perfume filling the upstairs.
9) Can BRAVE the firing line gauntlet of managment eyes leading fromwork area to bathroom or any other needed function your job might needyou to go.
10) Must have stiff neck muscles to nod in agreement and look concernedwhile listening to all of co-workers ailments.
11) Ability to sleep and type with eyes open looking like your workingon that next useless report.
12) Knows not to interrupt naptime and look the other direction asthis is common for upper management.
13) Extra effort given to men as there have already been problems withwomen and harassment on upper management level. More credit given if he wears a thong!

She also mentioned that this was going to be a management position that would report directly to her and not Bill. Oh do I feel sorry for this next person.

I have noticed in the past couple of days an extreme power struggle occurring. The Head Monkey wants to get rid of The White Witch and is formulating a plan that includes putting the Skipper in charge. Now I think the White Witch has detected this plan and is in the process of saving her own butt. She is starting off by deflecting all blame from herself of me leaving onto Bill. And is starting to harp on Bill, really bad, for New guys performance and lack of training.

Step 2 is to do everything possible to get rid of the Skipper. She gave him his 90 day review yesterday and told him she didn’t have time to do it and he wasn’t getting anymore money and he just needed to sign it. She also called one of the long time penguins into her office to find out what he thought of the skipper. The Penguin said the skipper wasn’t worth anything and thought they should get rid of him.

Step 3 she is starting to get more and more involved in the business and attempting to drive where Addroc is going, which is down.

I am also wondering they will let me finish out my 2 weeks? Addroc has a habit of dumping people before their 2 weeks are up.

The Professor just came over and said that the White Witch called him and said that she was going to take over the hiring of the new IT person. But she said that she was going to have The Professor help in her interviewing process. Can we all say Bill is out of here.

Dumber

Poisnoning my soul

2006-06-29T07:25:00.000-06:00

The White Witch called me into her office yesterday as I walked in she stayed by the door and closed it behind her. She then proceeded to walk over to her desk and turn on some loud music with lots of bass in it. The White Witch started to grind her hips back and forth, ok as much as any 68 year old woman with bad hips can, and rubbing her hands all over herself. Fist to come off were her pants, she had to actually sit down to do this, but I was surprised to see a lacey red thong poke out, I didn’t know you could purchase them that large but I guess you can buy anything on-line. Next to come off was her see thru shirt, and let me say it truly was amazing to see the grand canyon made of jello without an obstructed view. That’s when she started gyrating back and forth saying “you know you want to stay, you know you want to stay.”

Ok maybe it didn’t happen like that but smartass put the thought in my head and I had to go with it.

Wednesday started off with the White Witch coming out to get me to come in and talk to her. I went in with the plan to just stick to my story about how I was going to a place with more opportunities for me to learn. Of course she wouldn’t accept this as an answer and wanted more detail, I tried to pick safe items that wouldn’t get anyone in trouble. We ended our conversation with the agreement that I was leaving and nothing could be done about it.

About 2 minutes later the professor came upstairs because The White Witch called. As I found out later she told him the entire reason I was leaving was because I couldn’t take the pressure of the new scheduling system we were building. He got done and she called Bill into her office.

While Bill was in her office I went for a walk. The Head Monkey found me and asked me to go for a little walk with him. He said that he was really upset at me leaving, not at me, but the fact The White Witch and Bill let it happen. He asked me if I would be honest on my exit interview as to why I’m leaving. He said that he was going to get rid of the White Witch over the next six months and if I were honest, say the White Witch is crazy, it would help his case against her. He also mentioned if she wasn’t gone in six months he would be. I left with my head spinning with thoughts. If I could honestly help the people of Addroc get rid of the White Witch I would, but yet how do you say someone is crazy nicely.

After I got back upstairs the White Witch pulled me into her office again with her and Bill. This time they decided to make me a counter offer. Now I never told them what I was getting at my new job but their offer was exactly what my new job is paying and they also gave me more vacation. As an added bonus I would not report to Bill but directly to the White Witch. The funny part to me is now the jobs pay wise are the same, now the question is am I leaving for more money or because of the environment?

The rest of the day I was completely useless and wandered around aimlessly with my head spinning.

I’m sitting down to post and I’m thinking I probably should have just laughed at them when they offered me more money. There is no way I’m going to stay, I knew that as soon as the offered but I was trying to be nice and say I needed to talk it over with my wife. I’m not leaving because of the money, I’m leaving because Addroc is slowly poisoning my soul.

Dumber

Broken Handle

2006-06-28T07:58:00.000-06:00

Tuesday started off once again with me dreading coming into work, I knew Bill was going to tell the White Witch of my decision and I didn’t really want to deal with it. About 7:30 we got a call from HR telling us the White Witch was not going to be in for work, not that she does anything normally, but boy I wish I could do the same.

There where many emotions that came out of my meeting with Bill yesterday one of which was pity, I truly felt sorry for bill. I felt like I was sitting across the table from a fellow prisoner and I had just been released and that he needed to stay. It was a really weird feeling.

Smart even came up in our conversations. Bill was telling me about how when Smart started he wanted to work 6:00 AM to 3:00 PM so he could do some work on his house. Bill, under orders from the White Witch said no the White Witch needs us here from 7 am to 4 pm. Bill continued to tell me how Smart mentioned to the White Witch that he would like to work from 6 am to 3 pm and she agreed. Bill told me that from that time forward Smart new he could go to the White Witch and he, Bill, was not really his manager anymore.

What does that have to do with me? I could start to see the same thing happening to me. I was getting more and more of my direction from the White Witch and Bill was getting more and more distant from me. I knew in 6 months to a year Bill would be extremely un-happy with me and would be doing everything to get rid of me.

Once I found out the White Witch was not going to be coming into work I decided to go around and just tell everyone, I was going to wait until she found out, just to be nice. Pretty much everybody was really happy for me but sad for the company. Some of the people where completely shocked but most where just simply happy.

One of the penguins who was out of town yesterday called me today and said “so I hear you’re a short timer”. I was surprised he had already heard the news. He proceeded to ask me “So good old Bill wasn’t coming through with more money?” I tried to stay diplomatic and say “That was part of it”. The Penguin then told me that he had to fight the White Witch for 2 weeks before she would give one of his employees a raise.

This made me think that maybe the real issue is that Bill wasn’t willing to fight for me in the beginning or maybe this was part of the game they played. They won’t give you a raise until you threaten to leave and get really angry. Whichever way it doesn’t matter I don’t play that game and I didn’t feel so sorry for Bill.

Now for my funny story for today:

I was having a little sit down time, as Smart called it, or as most people would call it I was taking a dump. I had completed the task at hand and got up to flush the toilet and as I pushed the handle down, this is the type of toilet you find in a home with a separate tank and all, the handle snapped off and fell to the floor.

I looked down at the handle on the floor then at the toilet then at the handle on the floor and thought to myself “You have got to be kidding me”. I figured I had 2 options I could leave the toilet the way it was and go get Schneider the maintenance guy and have him fix the toilet with my poo still in it. Or I could just leave the handle on the floor and not flush the toilet and walk out the bathroom and no one would know who did it. I was leaning towards option 2 when it dawned on me I could take the lid off the toilet flush it and then I picked up the handle and stuck it back on and hoped it would break on someone else next time.

And yes The White Witch showed up today but you will have to wait until tomorrow to here the stories.

Dumber

Two Week Notice

2006-06-27T07:14:00.000-06:00

Monday started out with me being extremely nervous about turning in my resignation, Bill wasn’t there so I had to wait.

I was talking to the secretary penguin at my desk when Melman came over and said look at the bug I found crawling on my mouse, she brought it over on a white sheet of paper and set it on my desk. I looked at it said gross and told her she should probably kill it because its probably going to jump. Now a quick side note, I know nothing about bugs but this bug looked like it would jump.

Melman picked up the piece of paper decided to take another look before she squished it. She held it up to her face then out of no where she let out a very loud scream. You know the type, you fall into a hole and break your leg and you let out a scream of pain, that would be close to her scream. The bug jumped off the piece of paper and onto her face, where she claims it bit her cheek.

She quickly ran into the bathroom to make sure the bug was not in her hair. New guy and The White Witch both came over to see what was going on. I on the other had was laughing extremely hard at her. She came out for a couple of minutes then went back in, when she came out she told me that she had to make sure the bug was not in her clothing either.

I was talking to Cowboy Penguin and Melman and Cowboy showed us, for some reason, his driver’s license picture. Melman looked at the picture and said “You look just like Charlie Sheen”. I looked at the picture and she was absolutely right he is a dead ringer for a young Charlie. For the rest of the day I was giving him a hard time and calling him Charlie, I think I will have to continue this trend for the rest of my time here.

I have also noticed that management is watching us like hawks any time you start talking with a fellow employee. While I was talking with Melman and Charlie (Cowboy) the White Witch came out of her office looked at us and glared at us and I could tell making a mental note of us messing around. I’m sure she will tell Bill of our slacking.

Bill finally came in yesterday about 1:00 PM and everybody and their sister needs to talk to him. While I was waiting to talk to him The White Witch came over and started yapping to him. In the mean time Melman went to get a print off the printer when all of a sudden she doubled over in pain. I sat there watching her, horrified that she might either throw up on the floor or die right there. She walked over to Smart’s old area still doubled over in pain going oh ah ouch this really hurts.

I went over and got her chair for her to sit down in and finally others noticed that Melman was about ready to die right there. New guy came over to join me first, then the Nutty Professor joined and finally the White Witch and Bill noticed and came over. The White Witch of course got very close to Melman while it looked like Melman was going to throw up.

I actually had to stop myself from laughing at the sight of all 5 of us standing around watching Melman getting sick. I was also thinking that the smell of the White Witch was enough to make me sick I’m sure it’s not helping Melman right now. As we all watched The White Witch and The Nutty Professor had a very long discussion of whether it was her gal bladder or her appendices that was her problem. It all culminated with the White Witch pushing Melman back to Melman’s desk in Melman’s chair. It was one of those special addroc moments.

After all that I finally talked to Bill about my resignation. He was surprised but yet I think he was actually happy for me. He asked me if it was just about the money. To which I said that was part of it but honestly it was about the craziness that is Addroc. He completely understood though and said that he was hopping to not be here too much longer. It was actually a very anti climatic moment. I think the real fun will start today when he tells the White Witch.

Dumber

Letter of resignation

2006-06-26T08:02:00.000-06:00

Friday was a truly boring day: no Bill, No White Witch and No Head Monkey means nobody came up to bother us. I thought I would give my resignation letter a try.

Dear Addroc,

I am very happy to inform you that July 7, 2006 will be my last day of work. I greatly appreciate the opportunity to come and work for you.

As I sat down to write my letter I decided to be completely honest with you as to why I am leaving this position.

1st ever since dumb left I have been doing his job and mine and when I asked you for some more money Bill, you said you would need to talk to the White Witch and get back to me and you never did.

2nd I can’t stand the craziness anymore. Everyday I kept thinking it would start to balance but in the 2 years I have been here it hasn’t.

3rd I can’t take looking at you the White Witch in your see thru shirts showing all of us the Grand Canyon made of Jell-O

4th I can not take one more day of listening to Melman complain about her sicknesses

5th I am tired of everyone’s negative attitude, and I don’t want to end up like them.

6th this company has no future with you, Bill and The White Witch, here.

I should probably stop now before I get too carried away. But I wish you luck in finding someone as Dumb as me who will stick around way to long.

Bill will not be in until this afternoon, so I have not given my 2 week notice yet.

No office for you

2006-06-23T07:09:00.000-06:00

I came in yesterday and was walking over to my desk to begin my day when the White Witch came running out after me. She told me in a very panicked voice “When you get settled we need to talk about an email that the skipper sent out”. I got everything settled as slow as possible and went into her office.

The big problem is that The Skipper is asking for Microsoft Office to be put on all the Graphic Arts computers. Now the White Witch is strongly opposed to this for two reason’s, 1st she doesn’t think they need it and 2nd she thinks it will cause their machines to crash. I told her that 2 out of the 3 already have office and we have the licensing to do the other one. She looked at me all accusatory and all and said “Why do they have office, what do they need it for?” I just looked at her and said “I don’t know”. I could then see it in her face, Damn smart something else he went behind my back on (Sorry smart that’s the way it looked to me). Needless to say the one lone Graphics guy is not getting office.

As I was leaving Wednesday night there was an older woman sitting in the entry way filling out a job application. I really didn’t pay much attention to her I figured it was for an open penguin position. Melman came in and said that she was meeting Bill for an Interview. He is interviewing for new guys position. Let me be very clear on this one, new guy has no clue that they are interviewing for his position. They just keep him working and teaching him new things the entire time knowing they are going to can his butt in the next week or so.

Ridicules asked an interesting question “what was I going to blog about now”. I’m not sure if I will keep blogging. I don’t want to start blogging about the people I work with again, I don’t want to take the risk. And I don’t know about the rest of my life, I’ll let you all know, if you care.

Dumber

Don't touch my screen

2006-06-22T07:29:00.000-06:00

Yesterday I accepted the job, the unfortunate part now is I have absolutely no motivation to do anything at all at work. Over the next couple of days I will write a fake letter of resignation and post it then also post my real one and see which one you like more. I also will not be telling Bill about my resignation until Monday. He will be gone both Thursday and Friday of this week and I don’t know how The White Witch will react and I would prefer not to deal with her to much.

Yesterday was also a pretty ho hum day most of my excitement came when I saw the White Witch and The Nutty Professor headed towards me. The White Witch took up her position standing as close as possible on my right side. She asked me to pull up a particular report and then proceeded to point at my screen talking about the report. Now mind you she didn’t just point at my screen she was putting her fingers all over my screen, leaving her greasy finger prints all over it. If I would have turned my head just 90 degrees the Jello canyon would have been in full view for me too. I’m not going to miss that.

The Gardening Penguin also told me today that she was going to start walking with me. This actually made me somewhat sad because, if she actually does, I will only get to walk with her a couple of times. She’s a pretty nice person and I would like to walk with her more.

HB - I won’t be calling myself smarter until my absolute last day, there is still a chance of something happening that keeps me from being smarter. Also Smart did not become smart until his last post and I think that’s fitting. And no there will be no pictures of our man love.

Dumber

Offer accepted

2006-06-21T12:14:00.000-06:00

Much to the suprise of everyone, I'm sure, I accepted the offer today. I will probably be starting at the new job on July 10th, might be the 17th depends on them though. One of the funny things about the 10th is thats the day I started at Addroc 2 years ago, I will have worked at addroc for 2 years to the day.

Its kind of unreal though and a little bit of a let down. There are so many good things I could do at Addroc, but the craziness is overwhelming. Really that's what it comes down to, I need better working conditions.

And don't worry I will keep you all up to date over the next couple of weeks on what happens.

Still Dumber

I don't care

2006-06-21T08:16:00.000-06:00

Yesterday was a huge day for me, my parole officer called and said you are free to go. Being the ever picky prisoner I have opted to review the offer and make sure its all good. On the surface the 2 companies are very similar in the benefits package they offer, however I will be making more money.

For me though it goes much deeper then any of that because it doesn’t matter how much money Addroc offers me I will not stay, I can’t take the craziness anymore. I also think there will be more possibilities for me to do more things with more technologies. I am having a very hard time working today, because I don’t care!!!!

Although just because things are looking up for me, Melman is getting more and more stressed out. Now I will give Melman credit here, having to pay bills when there is no money is not a fun job. She is constantly getting calls from people asking when they will get paid threatening to put us on hold. Not very fun.

The stress is really showing now, she is complaining about shooting pain in her arm and her ear hurting. I thought about telling her that the shooting pain might be a sign of a heart attack, but I decided she was probably just making it up anyway.

It was really weird to have people talk to me about the future at Addroc and all I wanted to say was I don’t really care, this place is just going to be a bad dream for me in a year.

Dumber

An Offer

2006-06-20T10:10:00.000-06:00

I just got off the phone with Smart's new place of employment and they are making me an offer. I am very happy and can bearly stop smiling, I'm about ready to start swinging from the rafters.

Dumber (Soon to be Smarter)

A Call?

2006-06-20T08:08:00.000-06:00

I don’t really remember what happened yesterday. I forgot my cell phone at home yesterday so my wife called me and said I had a message from the VP of Software at Smart’s company asking me to call her back. All of a sudden my mind started racing I blocked everything out that happened in the day and I started day dreaming. Here is a quick list of some of the things I was dreaming about for the rest of the day and night:

They just want to tell me no thank you (This is actually an option. One of the reason’s smart likes the company is because they seem to treat people with respect. I could see the VP calling me to tell me they went with another candidate.)

They want to offer me the job
When I start should I take fun dips for smart and I to share?
On my first day should I jump in smarts lap giving him hugs continullaly saying thank you thank you while everyone looks on.
Could I throw a bouncy ball from the 2nd floor and hit smart?
They are just going to tell me no
They are going to offer me the job
Maybe they will double my salary (Not realistic).
What will Addroc say when I give my 2 week notice?
What will I do without see thru shirts and jello canyons?

I will post again when I find out what’s going on.

Dumber

Super Model

2006-06-19T08:21:00.000-06:00

Gollum finally brought donuts in Friday after a long dry period of no Donuts. I was so happy I didn’t even wait the required 15 minutes before I ran down stairs. I also couldn’t help myself and ate 2 donuts, don’t worry though I got one of the donuts in the Monkey’s area and the other in the penguin area. Now no one is the wiser.

I also had a thought to ponder today, are 2 guys at work gay? First let me start off with a couple of stereotypes about gay men; first they usually take showers at least once a day. 2nd they usually shave / keep their beards groomed. 3rd they usually dress nicer then your average hippie.

Now why would I be surprised these 2 guys are gay? One of the guys is really quiet and doesn’t talk much. The other guy is alien boy and claims to have been abducted by aliens on three different occasions. They both look like, on the average day, they have just rolled off a 2 week bender following the grateful dead around. No showers, un-kept beards and dirty clothes.

Now what makes me think their gay? They live together and are putting a deck on their house. One of them, the quiet one, hasn’t shown up to work the past 3 days. In response to that one of the Penguins said “I wonder how long alien boy will last”. Are they gay or just really good friends.

The White Witch came over to show Melman a picture of her new grandson. The problem with this is that he is 28 years old, a product of Tammy fay and Jim Baker getting married, male model. The pictures that The White Witch showed Melman were of her grandson in his cheesecake modeling poses. He had his shirt undone showing his chest and low rise pants on. I don’t think anyone else can bring in pictures of obscure relatives and show them around like that.

Dumber

The Excel Folder

2006-06-16T07:50:00.000-06:00

Thursday started out by with one of the sales monkey’s calling me and asking me “If I delete an excel file off the desktop will I still have a copy?” I said “let me come down and see.” My thought was that if it’s a short cut it would be fine to delete.

I got down there and of course it’s the file so if he delete’s its gone. Here’s how our conversation went:

Me “no you can’t delete you need to move it to a different location. Where would you like to move it?”

Monkey “Can I move it to the excel file?”

Me “Excel is a program not a folder”

Monkey “I don’t know just where all my excel files are”

Me “The U drive?”

Monkey “Yeah, now how do I move the files?”

Me “You need to highlight……” you get the point.

The White Witch came and visited me today asked me if I could find out what this order number was for this job. She said she was in the accounting package and that it wasn’t listed in there, which was true. I simply opened another program and easily found the information for her.

I thought about explaining to her that she could have opened another program while the accounting one was open but then I realized she had that look in her eyes that her medication was not well balanced. I figured the less I poked the stick at the chemically imbalanced lady the better I would be.

I forgot to mention that the newest addroc employee stopped in yesterday, he was born 3 days ago to one of the oompha loompas. This is the lady that started at addroc at the age of 15 with here mother. She might have her GED now but dropped out of high school to work here. Her boyfriend works here too as another Oompha Loompa. This kid will start in about 15 years to the day, I hope Addroc makes it that long.

Dumber

Stress Filled Day

2006-06-15T07:35:00.000-06:00

Yesterday for me was a pretty ho hum type of a day. Melman though was completely freaking out all day without Bill being here. At about 8:30 Melman started asking if it was time to go home, she leaves at 3:30. Every time something would come up she would start sighing, moaning and worrying about what to do. In general stressing about the job she was hired to do but is incapable of doing without someone there to watch over her shoulder.

The new guy in finance also appears to be looking for a new job, which is a really good thing for him since he is probably going to be fired soon. I also noticed that the new guy is completely and totally over whelmed with everything right now. This is normal in a new job but Bill is not training this new guy at all. He gives the new guy about ¼ of all the information he needs and then gets pissed if he doesn’t figure out the rest.

I ended up spending sometime in The White Witch’s office yesterday working on her computer. I was sitting in her chair while she sat on the desk next to me looking over my shoulder. Every time I would turn around the grand canyon made of jello was staring me right in the face. It was just like the bad accident thing I had to make a point not to look, not that I wanted to look but my eyes where drawn to the carnage.

Stress is getting to Melman again, we have spent the past 20 minutes listening to her trip to the eye doctor and her extreme amount of pain she was in last night and the lack of sleep. She told us that she wouldn’t have come in at all except she had to print some checks, which she has not done yet and has told everyone of her pain that will listen.

I thought I would add that I don't trust anyone at addroc to tell them about the blog until I'm long gone.

Dumber

A day of gas

2006-06-14T08:38:00.000-06:00

The highlight of my day or should I say low light is the fact I had the worst case of gas that I have had in a long time. I had the fan running and I was still worried that I was going to gas out the upstairs.

Bill is out Today(Wednesday), Thursday and Friday this week to go see his mother. I feel pretty confident The White Witch will leave me alone but I’m pretty sure she will find someone to mess with. Melman is also freaking out right now with Bill being gone, its actually kind of funny.

The White Witch is wearing her white see thru shirt with black spots, remember that one smart. It’s the one that started me on my anti see thru shirt crusade. Today, thankfully, she decided to wear a shirt under it, which means we don’t have to look at her bra and its not as bad.

Dumber

Gilligan's Island

2006-06-13T08:26:00.000-06:00

I was telling the Professor about how The Skipper had called me a lil’ buddy and how I was thinking about calling The Skipper “Ginger” for now on. The Professor started laughing and said “Actually The Skipper(used his real name) should be called ‘The Skipper’ not Ginger”. I almost couldn’t stop laughing when he said that. He then proceeded to say “If he’s the skipper and your Gilligan can I be the professor?” I couldn’t believe that he just picked everyone’s name and I came this close to telling him about the blog.

Yesterday The White Witch’s printer broke, piece of junk printer Smart purchased. I was left with the prospect of trying to figure out what was wrong with it, she said she already cleaned it, and purchasing a new one. I went for purchasing a new one. I went and got a new HP little bit higher grade so hopefully it will last and I won’t have to go back into her office.

I got the printer set up and put it in her office and got it working just fine. She asked me if it would print legal paper? My first thought was of course it would but I could not figure out how. I told her I don’t know and went and got the instruction book. When I got back she was playing with the printer pulled the paper tray holder out so then legal paper could fit. She was very proud of herself for figuring something out that I couldn’t.

Melman also informed me that new guy that replaced Marlin who replaced baby jack jack is going to be canned in the next couple of weeks. Bill and her have decided that he’s just not up to snuff and we should part our ways. I now have a really hard time looking the guy in the eyes and in general feel bad for him. Melman and Bill don’t seem to have this same problem and keep acting like we are one big happy family. This is not general knowledge so please don’t tell new guy.

What is up with Blogspot lately I have had a really hard time updating lately, it’s getting really irritating.

Dumber

Dumber = Gilligan

2006-06-12T08:46:00.000-06:00

I had some problems posting on Thursday before I left on my mini vacation, that’s why I have two post for today so be sure and read on.

Wednesday of last week I was walking down the stairs and saw a guy sitting in a suit waiting to go in for an interview with The Skipper. As I looked at him I realized I know the guy from church. I said hi and good luck and thought to myself what am I going to say to him on Sunday and he starts asking me questions.

I went back many conversations that Smart and I have had about letting friends come to work here and knew I had to tell him the truth. Fortunately he is smarter then I am and already had many concerns from the interview and he was going to turn down the offer. I just sat there confirmed many of his concerns and didn’t have to add much. He did say though that The Head Monkey was taking a nap at his desk when he was there though.

I got an email from the Skipper today addressed to lil’ buddy. First I find this funny from the blog stand point as he is the Skipper and now I’m Gilligan. But on a professional stand point I think he’s trying to be an ass and trying to intimidate me. For my response should I address it Mary Anne or Ginger? Or am I being too sensitive?

Make sure you read the next one as it is new too.

Dumber

Password

2006-06-12T07:20:00.000-06:00

Yesterday I had to fix the FTP program Smart set up so they could make changes to the web site for new job postings. The problem was we changed the password on the web site to keep Smart out. This fix was not a big deal but Counselor Troy acted as if I had just saved a dozen kittens from certain death, a high five and all. Wonder if Smart got that much love on the simple tasks.

Yes we changed all the passwords on the computers so smart can not get in through cyber space, and no smart I don’t think you could do it as easy as your thinking(that is not a dare, please don’t try). Anyway I left my wallet and cell phone at work last Friday and I needed them for the weekend. I have never been given a door code, we use a key less entry system instead of keys, so I knew there would be one person who would remember all the door codes, so I called Smart. And imagine this he remembered many of the codes and I was able to get in the building.

The moral of the story is if your going to go through the trouble of changing your passwords to keep someone out maybe you should also change the keys to the building.

I am off at noon today and will not be here on Friday. Have a good weekend all and fun.

Dumber

Thank you letter

2006-06-07T07:41:00.000-06:00

Here is my first attempt at a thank you letter, let me know what you think:

Dear Parole Officer:

Thank you for taking the time to see me the other day, I do appreciate everything you helped me with.

I would beg you to not just look at the results of my test but also look at time served and the conditions I have had to work under. The day I came in for the interview The White Witch was walking around in a see thru shirt with a V cut showing cleavage like the Grand Canyon, of course the Grand Canyon made of jello. No man should have to see such horrors.

Also the people I work with are complete technology idiots. Once again the day of the interview I had just installed a new projector, everyone I work with thought this was the neatest invention ever. But I saw you have at least one in the meeting room and I would be willing to bet everybody accepts it as a necessary piece of business.

Again thank you for time and I look forward to working with you in reaching an agreement for my parole.

Thank you

Dumber

Let me know if I should make any changes.

Now to answer comments.

Yes Smart you did warn me and I did study and that's why I got an A on part of it. The other part I did not expect at all, they had me querying the oracle database using SQL code, ansi version 1, not exactly what I currently use.

Highlander you are right I need to find the humor again, my goal is to find at least one funny thing to write about each day.

I hope you are right smartass. As I replay the interview I wonder was it more to push what I know and to find out how I would react. I don’t know really but you are correct, I have been to negative lately.

Dumber

Tough interview

2006-06-06T12:36:00.000-06:00

I just got back from the interview and Smart’s place of employment and let me say the test was a lot harder then I thought. The test consisted of two parts one was write your own sql and create a form. I really struggled with the SQL part, mainly because they asked me to write it in a way I’m not used to, but I would give myself an F on this phase of the test. The other part was to create a form which I would give myself an A on.

My initial gut reaction after the interview was that I will not get the job. I do hope I am wrong. The part that I hate about test’s for a job is that they don’t grade you on how well you’ll go out and find answers or if your not under the gun how you will perform.

Sorry for the negative attitude but when I had the first interview I felt as though I had a 95% chance that I would get the job. Now I don’t have that warm fuzzy feeling anymore.

Dumber

Interview Today

2006-06-06T08:28:00.000-06:00

Nothing to report today, except I have my 2nd interview at 10:00AM and I am extremely hopefully that it will go well.

Dumber

No vacation for you

2006-06-05T08:51:00.000-06:00

The tale of 2 companies continued on Friday with a meeting with Bill, The White Witch, the Professor and myself. In a nutshell the Professor and I have decided that we should use Microsoft Project Server for our scheduling needs. Now this adds up to a lot of cash to be spent, about $8,000 on just for the server and project professional alone. Then in addition over the next 3 to 5 months we would need to upgrade to Windows 2003 and SQL server this would be another $12,000. Before we went into the meeting I thought I must be the biggest idiot to walk in there and ask for that much money.

The professor sat there told them all the wonderful work he is working on, which was good stuff. After he got done I got the job of telling them how much money this was going to cost. With a bill of $20,000 coming across the table, which could have been more, they were surprisingly supportive. Never once did they say well with the tight money situation we shouldn’t do it, which I totally expected.

Instead the White Witch was amazed that we would need to upgrade the server again. She went on about how these software companies screw you by forcing you to upgrade and now we would have to allocate more money for upgrades now. Was this the first time she had heard this?

This week I am suppose to take half day Thursday and full day Friday off. For this time off I only 4 hours of vacation and the rest will need to be personal time. Bill comes up to me today and says “Is there anything special why you need to take personal time, Your not suppose to take personal time just for vacation”. I just sat there completely dumb founded. He ended it by saying something like “We’ll have to figure out what to put down so you can use your personal time.”

I basically I have 1 month until my review and then I would get more vacation. Or better yet I have a couple of weeks until I leave for a new company.

Dumber

the tale of 2 companies

2006-06-02T07:24:00.000-06:00

I feel like I’m working in 2 different companies. The first one and the one I would like to get away from is the, we don’t have enough cash to pay anything and vendors are putting us on hold. This is also the low moral everyone hates the company and would like to walk out the door.

The other company, the one I want to see, is the one that The White Witch, Bill and the Nutty Professor live in. Their view is that times are tough now but just wait until things really get rolling we’ll be just fine. They are still planning for the future and everybody loves the company.

I have a couple of objections to viewing Addroc as the second company. First we are half way through the year and we have yet to meet projection. Eventually they need to admit things are not going like they planned and cut back accordingly. Second at any given moment there is at least 1 person if not 2 ready to walk out the door utterly frustrated.

On the good days, which are becoming fewer and fewer, I can see company 2 through all the craziness. I can see the hope the dreams that the 3 idiots see. But then I wake up and see that there is no hope for this company and at best they are second rate company in a second rate industry.

Enough complaining about the lack of money.

This weekend the family and I went for a bike ride. My 4 year old was riding in the carrier behind me saying pointless comments about nothing at all. When all of a sudden she says “Daddy you need a bigger seat, because your butt is kind of big.” I of course thanked her for her observation and kept biking along.

Dumber

Interview

2006-06-01T07:30:00.000-06:00

I don’t know if anything of significance happened yesterday or not. I was stressing pretty bad about the interview and not really paying attention to what was going on at work. There was no reason to stress though.

I left work at 12:00 went home ate lunch and tried to relax a little. Left way to early for interview and got there about 25 minutes early. Drove around for awhile went to the bathroom at Safeway and went back to find the entrance and go in.

I got there and Smart showed me around for a bit. I’ll say this he has a pretty cool work area. Although all those windows might be distracting. Went up and interviewed and I felt I did alright. I’m very qualified for the position, as it is exactly what I have done at Addroc. I left there about 2:45 and they called me about 3:30 for a second interview.

At the end of the interview she asked me why I wanted to leave my current job. My gut answer, that I didn’t share was “because they are all crazy and The White Witch is incompetent.” To play it safe I said “I’m looking for more opportunity for advancement.” She also asked me what is the most stressful part of my job right now. I was completely honest on this question and said “Having to listen to finance talk about which vendors they aren’t going to pay and who’s put us on hold.”

I just got an email from our ISP saying if we don’t pay our bill by june 15 they may cut us off. Can we say goodbye to email. Melman said they are scheduled for payment today.

Dumber

Money Problems

2006-05-31T08:17:00.000-06:00

We got the loan but things are still not getting any better. The White Witch is doing everything possible to not use the money on anything at all, to the point suppliers are putting us on hold or making us use a credit card to pay up front. They are having to put so much on credit card right now they have up the limit on the purchasing guys card to $25,000 it was only $7,500.

Billable Sales were also about $200,000 below projection for the month, 300,000 vs 500,000. Nobody can say what is going at all, which for me is the scary part. Going along this current course I don’t see Addroc making it more than a year. Hopefully I won’t be around to find out though.

Today is the big interview at Smart’s place of employment. The more I do research on the company and read about it the more I like it. One difference between this job interview and the last one is that I think I am ready to go. Back in December I was still hopeful that things would improve, but now I know things won’t. In fact with Smart leaving I can see the same patterns that got him in trouble repeating for me.

I will end this post with saying I think Addroc is in real trouble of not making through the year.

Dumber

Personal Stuff

2006-05-30T08:11:00.000-06:00

Nothing much happened at work after I posted on Friday. I did tell Melman though on Friday that the only bad thing about a 3 day weekend is that I have to come back to work.

We had a crazy weekend. Saturday the pool we joined opened so we went and played for a couple of hours. This actually wore me out more then the kids so Sunday I was already wiped out. Sunday we went purchased me some new running shoes, not for running just as everyday shoes.

Sunday night we decided to sleep outside in a tent with the kids. My youngest has a really bad fear of the wind and we are trying the camping thing out back before they go with boy scouts and girl scouts. Needless to say I didn’t get nearly enough sleep and was awake by 5:30AM.

Monday all I wanted to do was sleep but instead we drove over to Smarts place of employment so I know where to go for my interview. After that we went back to the pool and played some more. Once again had a great time.

I told my wife at dinner that I need to go back to work just to get some rest. Oh and in between all the above I mowed and watered the grass, cleaned the house, cleaned the garage out and helped some friends with a large multi family garage sale they where having as a fund raiser Friday night and Saturday morning. I don’t think my chair at work has ever felt so restful even though I don’t feel like I’m floating on air.

Dumber

2006-05-26T12:51:00.000-06:00

With my new responsibilities I am unfortunate enough to have to talk more and more with the employees of Addroc. One of the underlying themes when I talk to just about anyone is an absolute disgust of working here. I would say that morale is only getting lower and lower right now. The employees in general are ready to walk out the door and not come back.

I was talking to the most important sales monkey we have and he is extremely disgusted with things right now. I would say that he is about ready to leave except he makes big money and knows he’ll never make this much again. I have never worked for a place where everyone was so disgusted with their work environment.

I actually feel bad for most of the people around here. None of them have a college education, all they can do is work at Addroc or at another messed up company within Addroc’s market. I was talking to gardening penguin and she was talking about a similar company in town that was more messed up then here. I on the other hand know that someday soon I will be released from jail and be out of this crazy industry.

For lunch today my daughter’s and son’s school had a picnic that I went to. It was a beautiful day outside and did not want to come back to work. To be honest it doesn’t matter where I work I don’t think I would have wanted to come back to work.

Dumber

A drumal tool

2006-05-25T07:36:00.000-06:00

I had a very exciting day yesterday, with the possible new job and all. Even past that lots of eventful stuff happened. I also need to mentioned Addroc got the loan from the bank, but now Bill and The White Witch are trying to figure how not to use it to pay off suppliers that we haven’t paid in months.

Monday somebody found 3 baby bunnies, 2 to 3 days old under a picnic table that mama bunny abandoned. Cowboy Penguin being the animal lover he is took the animals in to try and save them. He went to the store and bought some milk for them and took really good care of them. I even brought my youngest daughter in to see the one surviving one yesterday. She got to hold it and pet it and of course loved it. Unfortunately though the last one died yesterday, but I give Cowboy penguin a lot of credit for trying. I think it shows that he has a really big heart.

On one of my trips downstairs I was walking by the women’s bathroom when I heard someone in there using what sounded like a drumal tool. I walked by thinking what in the world would somebody be using a drumal tool in the women’s bathroom for. Then I looked over and noticed that Counselor Troy was not at her desk and it dawned on me that she was in the bathroom pumping breast milk. It made me laugh thinking of her sitting on the toilet in the stall shirt up pumping away. Couldn’t Addroc give her a little more self respecting place to do this?

Also Counselor Troy mentioned that she has stopped smoking. I had to stop from laughing at her as she smoked all the way through her pregnancy and now that she has had the baby she stops.

Dumber

Changes (Guest Post)

2006-05-24T14:20:00.000-06:00

The changes are more them talking then truth I think. But here is what was said and you can read between the lines.

Gardening Penguin (GP): There seems to be disruption at Addroc.
Smart: Do you know what?
GP: No, people just seem to be quiet. You know the quiet before the next storm. I talked to JS from a competitor the other day.
Smart: Are you thinking of leaving Addroc? Would you go to this competitor to wori?
GP: If he will have me yeah.
Smart: Wow, well you know that the one Monkey is taking me brochures into that competitors company for me to possible bring on as a personal client.
GP: That would be awesome. They will soon be needing your services.
Smart: I hope so could be a nice basis for me to go out on my own.
GP: I agree, even the Monkey has mentioned going over to this competitor if they don’t leave him alone at Addroc.

This got me thinking. If the Monkey went over to the competitor what would be chances of him taking some of the new work for his clients with him? If he did that could really hurt Addroc sales since they have lived on some of those sales for a while. Addroc doesn’t care how they treat anyone so why should I care about them. If he was able to go and take that work with him I would laugh and love every minute.

Also everyone wish Dumber some good luck. I got an email from him today that he got a call from my new company. I know they have already hired one gal for the position but they have another spot still so we need Dumber to move here with me. I know that we just received another big contract today and need more people and they are moving to an area that he wants to grow in. This will be a great move for him and for me. My reason is as follows.

When I graduated college I helped a friend from college get a job at the company I got hired to. This is pre Addroc. Well this new job that I am at now I got the lead through this buddy and a friend of his that is here in this company. So he kind of re-paid me the favor of getting him a job. Now if Dumber gets hired here then I helped him and who knows in 5 or 10 years from now he might be the leading guy to help me again. See it is always good to keep your friends and stay in touch.

Since there was already a post from Dumber about the interview I think you can see his enthusiasm. I know from talking to people that most people that have been hired here have come from internal references. Anyway good luck Dumber.

Smart

Interview!!!!!

2006-05-24T13:51:00.000-06:00

I have a job interview at smart's new work. It's on Wednesday at 2 PM, 1 week. That's the earliest opening she had for me unfortunately. Say a prayer for me, I would really like to become smarter.

Dumber

Bill = Bad Manager

2006-05-24T07:55:00.000-06:00

I like the name Ginarrbrik for Bill, I think it describes him very well. This is the gnome from the Lion the Witch and Wardrobe that serves the White Witch. The only problem is that I can barley pronounce it and can barely spell it. As I write my posts I can’t be bothered with trying to remember such an important characters name. For this reason I think Bill should remain Bill.

Talking of Bill, Bill decided to take today off again. This is not a big deal, although I left wondering why he is taking time off, maybe a job interview. I used to think this would be a horrible turn of events, no Bill to protect me from The White Witch, but now I’m thinking it might be a good thing. Maybe we could get someone in here that knew how to be a manager instead of a life sucker.

Even though Bill feels he should tell The White Witch that he is taking the day of he refuses to tell any of us that he will not be here. Melman and I found out he wasn’t going to be here because we overheard him telling the Nutty Professor. Direct contact with your employees is strictly forbidden in his management methodology.

I also like “The CEO” being called the White Witch. I think it’s far more descriptive. For now on her name change will be official.

Dumber

Bad manager

2006-05-23T08:59:00.000-06:00

Ginarrbrik (AKA Bill) is starting to fall down my list of favorite people at Addroc. Yesterday he walked over to Smart’s old desk set some papers down and started walking off. I looked at him like “You do realize nobody sits over there anymore”. His response was “Its some invoice’s for window’s xp licensing, I’m sure Smart had it somewhere over here. Someday I’m going to have to go through the files and organize them.”

Can we all say Ginarrbrik has a hard time delegating responsibility. Can we also say Ginarrbrik is not a good manager. He is already complaining about new guy not being as far along as he should be (That’s the new guy to replace Marlin). Now is this new guys fault Or perhaps Ginarrbrik? Please vote I would like to know what you think.

Melman’s health is taking another turn for the worse. This time it’s her legs that are hurting really bad, to the point she can barely walk. With most people I would be concerned and care a lot, but not with Melman. She came in this morning and the doctor told her that her legs hurt because she has been doing a lot of walking. Of course this is Melman I don’t think she leaves her bed on the weekends and she complains about having to walk up the stairs. And the only walking she will do is to go shopping.

Dumber

Hottie

2006-05-22T07:38:00.000-06:00

No Ginarrbrik = no work for Dumber. Well ok some but as little as possible.

I was down stairs talking to one of the sales monkeys when a sales guy from one of our suppliers walked in and he was introducing his new sales person. I noticed this guy walk in mainly because the new sales person was very attractive. Now the rest of this story comes second hand from the Professor but knowing those involved I’m sure it’s true.

They went back to speak to one of the penguins who has recently been promoted and has his own office. They were in there talking when another penguin popped his head in to look around. The newly promoted penguin said “Oh don’t mind him he’s just here to see the Hottie”.

In their conversation Newly promoted guy asked sales rep “Why haven’t you been coming in?”

Sales rep said “They won’t let me in.”

Newly promoted guy “If you bring the Hottie in with you, you can come back in any time.”

Is this now acceptable in the work place? Should I start referring to women I meet on the street as hottie’s? Any Hottie sales women out there reading? Does this actually happen to you on a regular basis?

Dumber

Don't ask for what you don't want

2006-05-19T08:41:00.000-06:00

No Ginarrbrik (AKA: Bill) today. This could be a good thing or a bad thing. I’m not to worried though.

They had one of their leadership meetings on Wednesday and they excluded one of the Penguins that has been involved for a couple of years now. As long as I have been here this Penguin has done nothing but complain about being part of this meeting. Assuming that he would be very happy about being involved I went up to him and congratulated him. He was kind of gruff with me and I knew something was wrong. I later found out that he was very upset about being excluded from the meeting. He even went to the White Witch to talk about it. I personally do not feel sorry for him because he bitched and moaned the entire time he was there and now he got what he wants he complains.

Dumber

No memory of hope

2006-05-18T07:32:00.000-06:00

For me one of the hardest things to do is to muster up Hope. I sent smart my resume and I waffle between excitement that this is going to be the one and cautioning myself that this probably won’t be it so why bother. I have at other times in my life found myself in situations where I really needed a job and I would start to invest my entire self into a position to in the end not get it. I have found it easier to just wright everything off before it even gets started. That way if it doesn’t happen it doesn’t matter anyway I never planned on it working out. I know this is not healthy and I will not accomplish anything if I keep this attitude up.

The White Witch (AKA The CEO) came out and asked me to fix a report that was not summing up correctly. I corrected it fairly quickly and I went into her office to update her computer. She proceed to pay me a complement. She said “You know one thing I appreciate about you is that whenever you do something you do it right the first time. Typically you don’t have to come back to fix it again.” I said “Thank you” while thinking “You know this is the 3rd time in 6 months you have had me fix the same report with pretty much the same problem?”

I would also agree with all of you on the White Witch stepping down. No way no how. Someone would need to buy her out and with the way things are going nobody in their right mind would do that.

Word Verification: N0M3m0ry

Dumber

Health update

2006-05-17T07:29:00.000-06:00

For those that are concerned about Melman’s health I thought I would give you a quick update. As we are coming up on the end of the month Melman’s allergies seem to be starting to flair up again. Oh wait she is under some stress and she’s getting sick again. She went to the allergist a couple of weeks ago and they did an allergy test on her. They went through and stuck her with a bunch of needles with different allergens and guess what they found.

She had no reaction to any of allergens. She was extremely upset and tried to find all kinds of reasons why it didn’t work. But in the end I think it just verified for me that it really is just in her head.

I was talking to the professor yesterday and he said the Skipper is getting very frustrated. He’s not sure if any of it is really worth it. The Professor also said that if The CEO doesn’t leave he doesn’t see the Skipper sticking around. He also mentioned that the Skipper has a job offer in Iowa making $150,000 a year. I don’t know if that’s enough to get me to move to Iowa but right now I would think about it.

And yes I sent Smart my resume last night.

Dumber

Emergency Whiner Fix

2006-05-16T21:02:00.000-06:00

I am sorry I got tired of listening to Smartass (Dumbass) complaining about the word verification on the comments. To show that I really am Smart I went in and fixed it so us comments don't have to do that anymore, BUT if we start getting wild comments in there taht need to be removed due to that not being there it will have to go back on.

Come on Dumber send me that resume I am trying to open a door for you so you can become Smarter. :)

Smart

More work

2006-05-16T07:33:00.000-06:00

The biggest frustration for me since Smart was let go has been the increase in work load for me. I actually don’t mind the work it gives me a little variety and usually makes the day go by quicker. I have learned some new things in the past month that I normally would not have had a chance to do.

I have had 3 meetings so far with Bill and The CEO to try and figure out what we are going to do with the IT department. Now I will have to admit here that yes I was very sad when Smart left but A) I knew that smart would be much better off and B) I was hoping for a little more money to come my way.

Within the first week of smart being gone we (The CEO, Bill and myself) had a brief talk about what we should do with Smart’s position. We didn’t come up with anything but a little later that day The CEO came to me and said how about if you took on the role of manager for the IT department. Of course at this time I was thinking maybe I’ll get more money, but my primary thought was big red sirens going off in my head screaming danger.

About a week later I had a meeting with just The CEO where I outlined what I felt I could do and some of the things I knew we would need to bring someone else in to do. Of course the meeting was completely frustrating, as any meeting with The CEO will tend to be. But then she ended the meeting with “Thank you for your time we will let you know.” I was really pissed after this, I felt like her comment was completely demeaning and an attempt to make me feel small. Then I realized actually that really is what she wanted to do. And she always does the same thing because that’s how she feels and the only way for her to feel good about herself is to make someone else feel like crap.

I let it sit for a couple of weeks and I ended up having to request a time to speak to Bill, remember my boss, to talk about what was going on and about my additional responsibility. It went just as I thought it would Bill agreed with me and even agreed that I should get more money. But in the end his hands are tied because of The CEO.

I honestly wanted to tell him you know Bill just take responsibility for the fact that you have absolutely no spine and you are The CEO’s puppet. Kind of like the White Witch and that little gnome (I think that’s what he was) in the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe. One scene in the movie where it’s turning to summer and the gnome starts to take off his coat saying it sure is hot. The White Witch glares at him and he puts his jacket back on.

I don’t want any pity I am in my current situation because of my choices. I do have a goal in life that when I am Bill’s age that I will not need to sit and take the White Witch’s crap and can just walk out the door. Way to go Bill continue to compromise everything you believe in for the sake of keeping your job with the White Witch. For me it just reminded me again that the more things change the more they stay the same. I just simply need to get out.

I’m thinking about a name change here what does everyone think? (I need to give smartass credit here. He is the one who originally came up with this idea I just didn’t know how brilliant it was at the time.)

Dumber

Power

2006-05-15T08:45:00.000-06:00

The Skipper was recommended by The Professor to come to work at Addroc. He has held some fairly high level positions and actually does have a fairly good business since about him, which is also why I thought he would only last a couple of weeks. I would agree with you Highlander if The Skipper did end up taking over things would improve, I am not going to hold my breath though.

All of these stories I get directly from The Professor who is good friends with The Skipper. The CEO of course does not like The Skipper, now. The Skipper went to The Head Monkey and The CEO and pitched a proposal that would put him in charge of operations and would leave The CEO to do all of those important ceo jobs, take naps, fix up your house, play solitaire. The Head Monkey was very excited but The CEO was not sure and told them that perhaps we could do this over the next year as she trained him.

The Head Monkey felt they could make this change over the next couple of months. I think he could learn everything The CEO knows in a matter of 2 minutes, napping couch short cut to solitaire, oh wait maybe 30 seconds. Anyway the idea that The CEO could be phased out in a matter of a couple of months hurt her feeling, I think, and she turned at this point against the Skipper. In fact she was so upset she went to The Professor and told him that she didn’t trust the Skipper and that she would like to train him over the next year to be General Manager of the company.

One of the fun things that I get to deal with now that Smart (aka dumb) is gone are all of The CEO’s stupid questions. Today she came out and told me that her USB memory stick is not reading. I went in push the stick all the way into the USB slot and it worked fine. It is unbelievable to me that she can not use a little critical thinking to solve her own problems.

I also forgot to mention that I was really happy to get all of your comments. I felt like I was talking with friends I hadn’t seen in a couple of weeks then just writing my blog.

2 themes

2006-05-12T10:59:00.000-06:00

There have been 2 under lying themes to the past couple of weeks. First the lack of money. It’s to the point that we need money yesterday to get us paid up on bills and make sure we have enough for payroll at the end of the month. Everybody including the head monkey and co-owner of the company wants to go to the bank and borrow some to get us through a difficult time. Unfortunately The CEO does not agree and has not taken out a loan yet. She did meet with the banker a couple of weeks ago but still has not submitted the loan stuff.

I honestly believe they will meet payroll this month and maybe even next. But I know, as has already started to happen, vendors are going to stop selling us supplies. We will have work but no way to build the product.

The other theme lately has been the battle between The Skipper and The CEO. Now if you remember The Skipper was brought in to over see the penguins. He is totally and completely way over qualified for the position and now has his sites set on bigger and better things. The Skipper is aligning himself with The Head Monkey in an attempt to overthrow The CEO.

The good part of all of this is that The CEO is distracted from us. Bad news is that she can only focus on 1 thing at a time and in a time when she should be focusing on money she is focused on trying to fend off the attacks.

Dumber

Low stress(for now)

2006-05-11T08:00:00.000-06:00

Dumb’s last post, that is a big deal, congratulations Dumb I am very happy for you. I promised Dumb last night in an email that I would make a post today and we will see about the future. First why haven’t I posted for the past couple of weeks? The first week dumb was gone I was sure that we would have new people poking around our server and finding things that I didn’t want them to find. But I completely underestimated the incompetence of The CEO and not wanting to improve the current lay of the land. Basically through these meeting and recommendations people made she said “We heard all this before and we didn’t want to do it.”

The other reason for me not writing was that most of the craziness that I have had to deal with has been because of Dumb leaving. I know that whatever I would write would have come off wrong although none of it was his fault, and I was not comfortable with that. But now things have calmed down a lot and maybe I will start writing again.

Honestly the stress level is at an all time low right now. Bill hired a new guy to fill Marlin’s position who makes me look like a chatty Kathy. The CEO is having to fend off attacks coming from The Head Monkey and the Skipper (I think I might have to write about this another day). The only down side to this is that I am now Melman’s new best friend.

Dumber

Dumb’s Last Post

2006-05-10T15:07:00.000-06:00

A couple nights ago I went out with my son to run a couple errands. I thought I would help Dumber out by dropping 2 rocks into inventory for him to remember the fun we had. I hope he noticed and got a little laugh out of it. I will not add anymore but it was hopefully a chance for Dumber to see them and maybe throw out a comment and remember there is more to life the Addroc.

I did a little looking at the blog over the weekend. Dumber I can see your still reading it and it shows that your reading it from Addroc’s location so you might as well continue to write and let us know what is happening. You are vested and are 50% of this blog. The people want to know what is happening with you and what is happening at Addroc. Besides I am sure you need that release still and to get it out would be a good thing still.

When we started this blog that there was Dumb and Dumber, then along the way Dumbass showed up. I have accepted a new job with a new company and Dumb has now moved out of shadows of the Addroc prison, into a good place with smart people all willing to share information. I will again get to grow and learn and carry on conversations with intelligent people in the work place. No offenses Dumber you know as well as I do that is a struggle to find at Addroc. You are in the minority there Dumber.

A huge plus as you might know is there is COMP time for me to be off. We have written done the flexibility and have come to a very workable agreement. The difference is they are will to talk about it and the underlying and important thing is just get your work covered. I am excited and I think my desk that is in a corner with windows will be a great thing to let me feel like I am alive and not stuck in a dark corner cell.

Like a butterfly Dumb took 3 years of the Addroc cocoon and has emerged as Smart. My transformation seems to be completed and at this point we only have Dumber and Dumbass to finish. Dumbass you are welcome to comment here for us to claim your move to Smartass when you’re ready. I will be anxious to hear of your transition and note it in the blog, aka Addroc Novel. This blog has become a novel. I went through and captured all the readers’ comments and put them with my archives. At this point my Addroc Novel is almost 700 pages long.

Dumber, I and the readers beg for you to not let us down. You being a main character still needs to finish the story. We have all written and read for so long and know that Addroc is still the same and your stress and pressure has not changed. Besides, all good novels end with the leading and main characters living happily ever after. Dumber Don’t LET US DOWN!

Wow, as I was capturing that comments I read parts of it and remembered how the story changed and moved. I found it so amazing this blog made it for almost a year and over 400 posts. It was put in place as a way to vent and release the stress and tensions of a work environment for Dumber and I. As we wrote our daily entries we often wondered who would read these and would they believe what happened.

As I said above I read Thong boy and thought of the funny moments and I read of my release and the pain that kind of thing does. I can only hope that with this last post from me that you our readers and online friends will someday see this as a book on the shelves and know that you read it and lived it with us. You were the special readers that were part of this in your comment of support and fun.

I want to thank each and every one of you for that support. R. Julie, Star, HB, Dumbass, Highlander, Blondie, Cent, Ridiculous Chick, The Girls, anonymous, and the many more that read but did not comment. We knew you were there and thanks for reading.

I cannot stop blogging altogether so I have created a new site for me to put comedy and what evers. If your interested in keeping touch with me either let me know through any channel you know such as email or a comment here will get to me also. If you leave a comment please put in your email so I can respond with my new site.

Thanks again and Dumber we are waiting to here how your doing when and if you can.

Smart (aka Dumb)

Boring and Short.

2006-05-08T16:20:00.000-06:00

I had a very good weekend and got a lot of stuff done. Today, I ended up aerating lawns and getting caught up on some work around the house. I worked on a negotiation of the job offer I received last week and it will be modified and sent to me tomorrow. I will let you all know more tomorrow. As it stands I should begin working for my new company on Monday.

Dumb

Rainy, Cold, Relaxed, Good Day

2006-05-05T15:34:00.000-06:00

One of my personal businesses I sell an item on the web. It is a unique item and I am working on trying to get the word out about this product. At this point of the year I am currently almost at the same point in sales as I did all of last year. We are growing slowly. Today marks a new step. We sold to a guy in France that wants the item shipped to the Cayman Islands. This makes my first international sale. Woohoo.

I went back and visited the company that gave me the offer yesterday. Had a walk through and it was a relaxed work environment. I talked to the owner about schedules and such and he said there is no time clock everyone is professional and just expected to do their work. Lunch times are flexible and comp time is readily available. I left with a very good feeling since that is the problems I had at Addroc. Thus the reason we called it the prison. I have to give my decision on this job offer on Monday.

I had lunch with my daughter, and pretty much enjoyed my day.

Dumb

Job Offer 1

2006-05-04T17:39:00.000-06:00

Very quiet day today. Did some errands and work on our cars. It is a cold day today so not much desire to be outside.

I had an interview yesterday afternoon. I think it went well. It was a relaxed conversation and pretty easy going. The company is just over a mile from my home so it would be a very easy commute on the moped. It was nice to be able to talk to people in a way that was learning and beneficial for both parties. At Addroc there is not much good conversation. .

This morning I had nothing planned but make some phone calls and work around the house. I went out for a run, took the kids to school and showered before deciding what to do for the day.

The phone rang and it was one of my partners. He asked if I had time for a meeting today at 11:30 to go meet a potential customer. I said sure. I got off the phone and it rang again. This time it was the company I interviewed at yesterday. They made me an offer and thought I would be a great fit for their company. I took down the information and need to follow up with him tomorrow. I hung up and the phone rang again. This time a new client I just got this last week needed more work done. So out the door I went. In the end I worked 5 hours today for private clients, and had meeting with an offer for work. The other company I interviewed with I talked to also and will have me a report tomorrow afternoon on where that stands.

So now I ask anyone out there still reading this to pray I make the right decisions with jobs and work. Tomorrow might be a hard day to work though.

Dumb

Cold and Quiet

2006-05-03T17:31:00.000-06:00

Very quiet day today. Did some errands and work on our cars. It is a cold day today so not much desire to be outside.

I had an interview this afternoon. I think it went well. It was a relaxed conversation and pretty easy going. The company is just over a mile from my home so it would be a very easy commute on the moped. I kind of hope this one comes though.

The rest of the day was rainy an d yucky just hung out with the kids.

Dumb

Full Day of Stuff

2006-05-02T14:54:00.000-06:00

Today was a pretty good day. I set up an interview with yet another company for tomorrow afternoon. What I know of this company I hope something comes from it as I have heard good things about them and how they treat their employees.

I had coffee with a friend and ex-Addroc HR manager. She was one of them people that came through Addroc and actually was going to make it better until she knew her stress level was high and basically “The CEO” and Gollum I think made it so miserable if forced her out. She is a wonderful person that I always thought had great insight. She noticed also and commented I looked happier. This is getting contagious.

I went and did some work again today for a client and finished up his network for now. I think there is still more work there to come which is a good thing.

I also was able to work on my Moped some more. Maybe with all this time I will finally get it running more reliably. We can only hope. I ended my day with a 9 mile run with a group of friends.

Thanks for the comment Highlander. Right now I am really enjoying the time I have to get stuff done and work on my schedule. I hope I can manage enough work to pay the bill but I think in time it will all come together.

Dumb

More options

2006-05-01T20:49:00.000-06:00

I had a busy and fun weekend. I ran a race that I ran a year ago when I started running. I did the 5k last year in 30:31. I did it this year in 23:16. I shaved 7 minutes off the same race and finished 88th of 2743 people or the top 3% of the race. I was very pleased. The rest of the weekend was filled with a softball tournament that my daughter was in and her team took 2nd place.

Today was filled with an 8 mile run, a bunch of errands, 3 hours of work for a client, an hour visit with my grandma and another basketball game. I have to say I am getting things done around my house that have been missed and enjoying every minute.

I also talked to another company about a position in their company and he it sounds like a good part time fit. I received a call from yet another company wanting me to come in for an interview. I will follow up with them tomorrow.

A friend that I sent an email to a week ago finally responded and has some short term work for me. He writes grants and puts in an allowance for IT work and he said he has some more coming that I could do for him. Brochures, Business Cards and advertising is all in the works also so who knows where this ride it going to go but so far it has been fun.

Dumb

Dumb is getting healthier

2006-04-28T16:04:00.000-06:00

Today was again a day of errands and not much work. Made some appointments for next week is all. Worked on the yard and the cars and took care of items normally not gotten or done in a rush.

I also went to a health fair to have my blood work done. I am looking forward to seeing what it all comes back with since I have been running. I have had my blood pressure taken now over the last 3 weeks and each week it has gone down. Today I was near to average then I have ever been at 120/88 with a resting heart rate of 60. I am starting to think that when a friend of ours said she was worried about my health while working at Addroc that she was on to something. Evan with the uncertainty of what I will be doing next or where I will make money I am the happiest and calmest I have been in a very long time.

This weekend holds a softball tournament for my daughter and a 5k race for me on Sunday. I hope to do a personal best in time at the race. This is the race that kind of started my running a year ago and I have a picture of me lumbering in at 30:31 for the 5k. I will report my new time on Monday.

HAVE AGREAT WEEKEND!.

Dumb

Unseen Changes

2006-04-27T20:39:00.000-06:00

Yesterday almost nothing happened. Those days are what scare me although I got out and went for an am walk with Mrs. Dumb which was nice to do. We ran some errands and then went to lunch with her mom at one of my favorite places to eat, we had a coupon also. I got some parts repaired on my Moped and it is now ready to go in for some other work so I can try and get to driving it again which will save me some money on fuel.

We went to my son’s Lacrosse Game which was over an hour drive away that I would have missed had I still be locked up at Addroc. Where they played there was a long walk to get onto the field or you could watch from on a little hill but there was a fence between the field and the hill. It was a short fence that could be jumped easily. After the game I walked down the hill and took my sons gear and carried it to the car. When I got into the car Mrs. Dumb AGAIN pointed out to me that I just did something I would not have done a couple weeks ago. Something has begun to change I just can’t see it very well yet.

Today I have some work again. It is a new client again that is the first time to do work for. I hope it all goes smoothly. After that I ended up going out to another clients and working. All in all I ended up this week just a couple hours short of making what I would have made at Addroc and I worked less hours and was around to walk with Mrs. Dumb and make more of my kid’s things.

I got a call again from one of the monkeys from Addroc and he is needing cards and material from me. He is promoting me to a couple of businesses that might needs someone on a semi regular basis that could become a basis of work for me. Today has again been a FUN and exciting day.

Dumb

Dumb Looks Happy

2006-04-26T08:19:00.000-06:00

Yesterday was a full day. I ended up at 2 different clients and worked about the whole day. I had a blast working and enjoyed my time out and around. I need more days like yesterday to make everything be just fine.

Dumber I know I am always worried about tomorrow. It has not happened yet but I still worry about it.

I got a call from another company and today I have to review the job they sent me. It is for a 4-6 month contract for a larger company. Again for this one it is slightly above my knowledge level and could be a good learning tool. I think I have so decisions coming soon or yet this week.

I ran 4 miles in the am and followed it up with 9 more that night so I was beat and was too tired to try and write or do anything. Thus the reason this post is now on today.

Something must be going better and or changed and I didn’t know it. Last night I was half dead watching the Spurs and Kings game and my son looks over the stair rail and says “I have noticed your much happier now that your not at Addroc.” Mrs. Dumb was in the area and turned and said “I was just upstairs and was thinking the same thing. And for little Dumb to notice must make it even more true.” Hmmm wonder what the change as been?

Dumb

Missed Signs

2006-04-24T19:40:00.000-06:00

Thank you Star for the vote of confidence in your comment, I appreciated it. I am not one to just sit back very well as you can see and being that kind of a person is what seemed to get me into trouble at Addroc. Guess I should have been a meek little pet mouse for them to play with instead of someone that thinks and wants to move things forward. “The CEO”, Bill and the Head Monkey really don’t want that kind of a person there because if they did the company would be a much better place. Since I could not do it for Addroc I had to think and move on things for my personal life and they couldn’t handle it I think.

Last week I was able to do some thinking on things also. I should have taken notice of something that happened back in like November. Remember when suddenly “The CEO” wanted to take control of the back up tapes. They were planning their ridding of me then and it took till now to find a way to get me out. The guy that was in my position before me had their back up tapes and when they fired him he never returned them and it pissed “The CEO” off. As I look back now they were preparing and beginning their gunning for Dumb back then and I missed it.

I had lunch with Dumber. It was good to see him today and I know we will have to keep in touch. He has become a friend for sure. I wish him the best of luck there though as he said the craziness is slow right now don’t worry Dumber it will be back. Besides he has Melman, maybe we can see if he can start staring at her now for me. J

I found out today from this other job that I am one of the top picks for the position. They are calling references now so I hope they all give me good ones as I am sure they will. I am really confused to what is happening with all that is going on right now. This position so far is still moving forward. A friend called and there is still another 2 positions in the works for me. And it seems the good Lord is helping also. I have picked up 2 more clients and a couple of my old clients are needing more help and they seems to now be spreading the word as I have places to go each day for work. Not enough to cover the bills but enough to get started and with time and more growth it might all just work out.

Sunday night I was saddened with uncertainty of what to do on Monday morning. Again today my spirits were higher and I was HAPPY to not be going in to face Addroc. It was over all a great day to be alive and out in the world living more on my terms.

Dumb

Emotions

2006-04-21T19:58:00.000-06:00

I know my blog might seem hard to follow in the timelines. So much is happening that once I post I start again so for the moment my posts span the evening to about noon the next day. Please be patient with me as I try to just keep you all updated.

It is amazing the emotions a person goes through with all this. For example I was happy throughout the day yesterday. I actually was having a lot of fun working. I went and did two small jobs made a small amount of money and had so much fun working with new people in two totally new offices. Meeting people, solving their computer needs traveling some around the town was a lot of fun.

During a call a couple days ago I found an item that needed to go back to Addroc and I was near the place so I called Gollum and she came right out to meet me and get it. I of course didn’t want to get off my moped and just drop it off and move on. Gollum hugged me and said she missed me as I was always so nice to the old lady (her). As I was at Addroc I looked at the cars in the parking slots and the building and felt sad for the people locked up inside. So many of them miserable and yet for the most part can’t get out all for differencing reasons. Again the feeling of I am free and happy to be out in the sun working on my terms hit me.

Later in the evening on the way home from dinner with my daughters softball team I was suddenly in a state of moodiness again. I was worried that though today as a whole was good at this point there is not enough money for us to continue living our lifestyle. What would change, can I get work, I became saddened and quiet.

I got home and found an email to me from the company that interviewed me the night before. Remember they only phone interviewed 4 people and the HR gal said they would review those interviews and decide on who they would want to bring in for a onsite interview. Since the onsite takes near 3 hours I think they were going to narrow it down to only a couple for this last part. The email said I was given the go for the next step and I am to await my agenda email yet to come but plan on 3 hour interview at 1:30. I guess I am still moving forward.

The interview went well. I been in a lower mood all day so I hope that didn’t show and that it went well. Time will tell.

Dumb

Dumber's last post

2006-04-21T12:25:00.000-06:00

I have given the blog some thought this week and if I should continue to contribute. At the beginning of the week I thought we would have people wondering through our servers looking at things that I thought would lead them to Addroc. Thanks to The CEO’s complete inability to listen to anyone or to improve things that never happened. The sales lady during the meeting actually told The CEO “She was not a sophisticated computer user”. I knew right then that the meeting was a complete waste of time.

Anyway things have not been going that bad either after getting over the shock of not having my fun dip eating, family feud watching, bouncy ball bouncing buddy, it hasn’t been to bad. I wouldn’t say better and I wouldn’t say worse either just different.

With things being very different today then last week I am officially done contributing to the Blog. Wouldn’t matter if I worked for another company or not I don’t believe the risk of talking trash about your employer without someone to watch your back is worth it.

I appreciate all of you reading and also your support and I wish you all the best in the future.

Dumber

Interviews and Job Possibilities.

2006-04-20T13:30:00.000-06:00

I had a phone interview last night. It went really well. The interviewer started off with she thought my cover letter was one of the best she got and was very pleased and with that since my resume came in later in the process got put in the make it side. She had over 70 resumes for this position of which they were to cut them to 6. Mine looked good enough they decided to go to 7 for final review. Then that was cut again to the final 4 for phone interview of which I again made it. Now the review happens from HR and they will call the last couple in for onsite interviews yet this week. I will let you know what happens.

I have received tow calls and now have to dress professional and go out to the new clients. So the personal Dumb Computer Services is picking up some work already also. I have a pc system to get installed and 2 other people to call and schedule work with them also.

A friend of mine from college that I helped get a job when he graduated heard of an opening at a company from a gal he knew from college. He contacted her about me and for me to send her my resume. I went and looked at their website postings and found there that could be a good fit for my background. The fun part is that it gave me a leg up and with a couple emails I soon found out there is another gal there that I worked at from a company before I went to Addroc. So I have like 3 ties to this new company. After sending my resume I was emailed back with my resume has been sent directly to the hiring managers. It is nice knowing people.

The company I worked for pre-Addroc I held in high regard even after I was laid off from them. The people were awesome and the best of the best. In fact I had lunch with one of them today. I found out that now four of the people from this company have grouped together to do some bid proposals that would go through my personal computer business, Dumb Computer Services, for government work that I know is out there.

Dumb

Doctors Galore

2006-04-19T14:51:00.000-06:00

R. I plan to continue to blog for a while. I think I owe it to you all to know what is happening and how this book, Addroc and the characters all end up in the story.

I kind of see the Addroc blog as a novel about Dumber and I. I was looking back through it at the stuff we have written and the ups and downs of stress and conflict. It almost feels like the story The Never-Ending Story. That story as you know in fact does end and as do all good novels end with the main characters in a good place.

Yesterday I went to the eye doctor. Today I had a dental exam, x-rays, cleaning and a full blown physical. I have been trying to fit in all my medical stuff in under Addroc insurance while I still can. I have been amazed that Mrs. Dumb has been able to get me in to all three medical areas within just a couple days. Once the doctors know the reason of insurance is ending they have been very receptive to fit me in their schedules. The Dental one for today was literally right at that moment. Mrs. Dumb called and there was a cancellation. It was being booked by another gal in the office but once they heard my reason for the hurry they let me have the time. I have one follow-up visit with the doctor and they were able to get me back in on Monday for a small procedure to freeze some little spots on my forehead. Everyone has been very nice and is almost a shock to what I know from Addroc.

I talked to Dumber today on the phone as they were having a problem with one box at Addroc. I gave him the number though my response was to just say F*** them. But I still have my own code of ethics to live by and though Addroc owners have no ethics even my small ones are miles above them.

I have also been in a little depressed mode today with wondering what to do next though today was DOC day. But after talking to Dumber I realized and got a little better knowing I don’t have to deal with them assholes anymore. I talked to The Nutty Professor and he was very happy that I was out of there as he even said he knows that stuff they pull. I also talked to a Monkey from there that has made 2 calls to other companies to try and see if I would be a fit for their computer needs. He is following up with them and was thinking of more. SO in the end there are some good people at Addroc that know what really happened and have been very supportive of me even with “The CEO” being the pain in the ass she is.

I even felt a little sorry for Dumber who is still in the trenches. Dumber my prayers are with you. Keep the good fight going and GET OUT AS SOON AS YOU CAN!!!

Dumb

The First Day Alone

2006-04-18T20:35:00.000-06:00

I was pretty nervous walking into work on Tuesday I had no idea what to expect. I walked in and the Secretary penguin followed me up and said “Did you hear what happened…. I wanted to warn you so you wouldn’t be caught off guard.” I appreciated the thought. It was Tuesday which meant The CEO was going to be coming in late so that part of the stress was gone. Then about half an hour into the day I find out that Bill was not going to be coming in until 12:30 because of a Doctor appointment.

I was thinking to myself that’s it, no big meetings, no hey by the way we got rid of your counter part. Then I thought about it for a while and realized actually that’s pretty normal.

Bill came in and came over and we talked for a while and we talked about the future and what he was planning on doing. He said he was going to bring an outside company in to evaluate our computer needs and they would give us advice on what we should do next, hire someone again to fill Dumb’s spot or bring a contract company in to do the work. Let’s just say it’s a contract firm and I’m pretty sure what they are going to say.

Bill does want me to sit in on the meeting, so I don’t think it’s all bad for me. One thing though is at least for the short term we are going to have strangers looking through our network system i.e. Internet logs. Which to me means I’m going to have to stop posting for awhile, until I figure out what is going on. I always felt comfortable writing the things I did because I knew Dumb would not turn me in but now I’m really not sure and I’m not interested taking the risk. I will see how things are going over the next week and let you know.

So for now the Blog will be Dumb’s responsibility.

Dumber

Hopeful, excited, and scared all at the same time.

2006-04-18T13:07:00.000-06:00

Today I am feeling overwhelmed. I have a list still a mile long of people to talk to and go see. I have 2 leads for client work to get on this week. One client called and ordered a new system to be installed, so I am ordering parts.

I had a meeting with another partner of mine. There is good hope there on stuff to make money also. I have a mission to start selling that service also now and id I can get just 15 or so clients in that market alone I will almost make what I was making at Addroc and be on my own.

I have not yet met one person that seemed sorry for me not being at Addroc yet. Everyone one of them are supportive and say welcome to the real world of some financial worries and to the fun world of working for your own purpose. Even Mrs. Dumb this morning expressed that she is worried if I was to take another job for another company. She said it is not who you are. You have too many ideas and thoughts and motivations to be under someone else’s control. She said look at this guy we just met in February. He has health problems and yet he is happy and out there doing what you need to be doing. Being adventuresome and going after all these ideas. There is tons of work out there the fun part is finding a way to bring it in for yourself.

AND the fun part is now I can make it to my son’s Lacrosse game today that I would have had to miss working at Addroc. I was also thinking yesterday that I used to love to go golfing with friends in the early afternoons. In the 3 years of Addroc I made it like one time and now I think I might have the ability to do the stuff that lets us live life. One client the other day said to me “you will not ever regret taking the time to do the sports and participate in your children’s lives. Enjoy it and keep it a priority.” This has been a fight to keep for the last three years and now I see a chance to get back into it.

Maybe I can make this go. I just need some focus areas.

Dumb

1st post alone

2006-04-17T21:28:00.000-06:00

I thought I would write my post Monday night before I went to work. Her how I see things happening for me, I’ll get into work at my regular, acting like I don’t know anything, and The CEO will saying something completely inappropriate about Dumb being gone. I’ll be in a meeting with Bill and her talking about whatever the future holds for me for most of the morning.

Now this is not to say my stress even remotely holds a candle to the stress that Dumb is going through but I really have not been looking forward to Tuesday at all. I have been going through my head trying to figure out what this means for me. But I think for now that’s enough about me.

Now to Dumb and Mrs. Dumb this is a very stressful time for you guys that can either draw you both closer together or tear you apart you are going have to make a choice to have this event pull you together. And for Dumb I would highly recommend that you do something completely crazy. I would highly recommend you join a bible study at your church, early morning. You have the time now you might as well do it.

Now to Mrs. Dumb, please make sure she reads this. A while ago when I was unemployed for longer then I ever thought possible there was one thing that my wife did for me that really helped me out. She always had an undying support for me, no matter what. Now did this mean that she was naïve and question my abilities? No there was times she did but she never said it to my face. But she always told me that she believed and me and new I could do it.

Although I hope every thing will be a piece of cake over the next couple of weeks / months I know that with Dumb going off on his own he will need that support. Your support is far more important to the shallow male ego then you would ever realize.

Dumber

1st Day gone

2006-04-17T16:25:00.000-06:00

I sure wish I knew what I was going to do now. I am at a loss today. The day has come and gone and I don’t know if I made any headway but here are my thoughts on the day.

Last night one of the Monkey’s called me to see how I was doing. He was very sorry to hear about me being gone but in the same breath he said everyone that has left Addroc as been MUCH better off in the long run. He also said he will talk to some other company that he is pretty close to that is growing like mad, is in the same industry, and might need an IT guy now or in the near future. Not as full time but part time which at this point is what I think I want. This gives me some hope.

He then told me that one of the Penguin’s is real close to leaving as he is tired of all the crap. If this penguin leaves one of the main customers of Addroc’s will suffer. I also talked to one of the female Penguins today and she was upset with me leaving also. Again she knows it is for the best but it is hard to see that right now. Just wish I had my plan in place before this happened.

As for me I felt a little lost this morning. As I was out running at 7 am when I should have been at Addroc felt weird and I felt lost. One friend told me it was my 1st day of freedom I am in withdrawals but it will get better. I also stopped at one of my clients today to work on a backup system and the owner was like welcome to the self employed free world. I was like how did you know but then put the connections together another client he knows told them. So far that has not been one person say this is a bad thing to me except for Mrs. Dumb is feeling sad at the moment. We just need some time.

Dumb

Dumb is Termintated

2006-04-14T11:11:00.000-06:00

I looked out my window over Oompa Loompa land and noticed Mama Oompa Loompa talking to her sister Oompa Loompa and daughter Oompa Loompa was standing there listening. As I watched I noticed that the daughter who is pregnant is standing there doing pelvic thrusts. I told Dumber who didn’t believe me and came to the window to look out also. When he saw her doing that he about choked trying to stifle his laughter. At one point I even noticed she was gyrating her thrusts all the time the Oompa Loompas just kept on talking.

I don’t know how much I will be posting from now on. I was just called into the office and was terminated for having my cell phone on premises. I will try and keep you all posted as I can.

Dumb

A Leak in the Skipper’s Boat.

2006-04-13T13:37:00.000-06:00

Last night I was headed out of the neighborhood with my daughter for softball practice. I then notice this car go by with license plates of the name of the person. I know this is the new temp we have working at Addroc for the next 6 weeks or so till Counselor Troy comes back off maternity leave. She pulls over in front of me and I stop and say hi and find out she is renting a room in the same neighborhood. I get to work and she starts talking to me right away. She tells me that she should give me her cell phone number in case I need a ride in someday. I am thinking I have known you all of 2 days, you’re a 6 week temp and does she know I will need a ride in over the next two 2 weeks. If I needed a ride in today would have been the day since Mrs. Dumb’s van is I the shop, but Mrs. Dumb will drive my truck today and I am on the moped so I think I am okay now, besides the 8 track worked awesome this morning as I was rocking out to the Chipmunks to Amadeus on the ride to work.

Cousin It caught me and had a bunch of changes the Head Monkey wanted done on the website. He had questions on what to do with them and was asking me. Again, our website is not looked at potential customer very often and not really a high priority but the Head Monkey made all these changes so Cousin It would have some filler work to be doing. I took the sheets and looked through the changes and decided I don’t care if he does them but he needs to work on current files. I took the sheets back to him and had him go look at the current website. Part of the changes the Head Monkey wanted done was already in place. I told Cousin It to work on the changes vs. the current site and then let me know and we would work on the next step.

What really happened here was Cousin It was looking for something to do to occupy his time and found the OLD website files, printed them and took them to the Head Monkey trying to find work for himself. I find it funny that Cousin It is digging for work since the Penguins all say we are way behind in work, and that Cousin It already takes too much time to accomplish a job and when he is done it is wrong. Time will tell what he is really doing.

I come walking back to my desk and as I pass I hear The Skipper say to Melman that something looked beautiful to which her reply was thank you. I asked Dumber if I heard it right and he verified that yes he did say that to Melman. Okay is everyone out there thinking the same thing I am now? Is the Skipper an idiot?

Dumb

real work problems

2006-04-13T07:09:00.000-06:00

For the first time in I don’t know how long I have actually run up against a computer problem that I am having a very hard time solving. It has nothing to do with The CEO or the Head Monkey, I’m actually almost lost what should I do. I’m so used to the personal / annoying people problems I’m not sure how to go about solving a work related issue. Just in case I would like to ask are most valued readers, are there any Crystal Reports experts out there? If so I could really use your help please leave a comment.

I will also be out of the office both Friday and Monday so no posts from me. No big plans just hanging out at home.

Dumber

Right NOW

2006-04-12T13:59:00.000-06:00

The Professor was near by yesterday and commented on he was told he has three weeks to work on his project without being bothered and or pulled off on some other task. Dumber has been told the same thing. We were all just talking for a minute and from my location I could see Bill getting up and down from his desk. He pretended he was going to the printer etc but I know he was trying to listen and such. Pretty soon he wandered over to the area to ask a question to the untrained eye but to my professional Addroc eye I know he was just breaking up the talking session.

I got all the Monkeys email auto signatures programmed in yesterday just like the Head Monkey wanted them. This morning he brings me an email and has it marked up with a bunch more changes. Here I go again back to each of their computers to make their names at the bottom of an email be more important then the information in the emails themselves. As Dumber says though it all pays the same until the loan comes through or we close the doors.

One of the Oompa Loompas was having a problem with his pc. I went out to work on it. While I am there The Penguin that is going to take over for Seargant Gunnery Hartman, (we need to rename this penguin), came into the little office and said to the Oompa Loompa “come on “The CEO” wants to see us right now. She said RIGHT NOW. She can’t wait till break is over in 5 minutes she wants us RIGHT now.” And away they both scurried off to “The CEO’s” office. “The CEO” has had Bill and Gollum also in her office this morning thus it means she is aligning people for something on her side. I would guess it has to do with her sales meeting later with the Head Monkey and with Addroc not having any money.

Dumb

Here's your stuff

2006-04-12T07:47:00.000-06:00

I went into The CEO’s office yesterday morning to give her the reports she so badly needed. I handed them to her, she said thank you, I turned around and left and I haven’t heard anything all day. I’m wondering how long before she comes up with another brilliant plan.

I had to leave for lunch yesterday because I had to make a quick call back for a possible job. The job itself sounded pretty cool the only draw back is that the job is about an hour away from my house. I’m not sure if I’m that desperate yet to drive an hour. I have become very comfy in the idea that I get off at 4 and I’m home by 4:30, 4:45 if I ride my bike. The thought of driving for an hour, right now, is worse then the thought of having to see The CEO in the morning.

Dumber

The Owners Can’t Focus

2006-04-11T13:35:00.000-06:00

I am one lucky person. Today Dumber was serenading me with the song Sunshine. I must be really specials since he did this with a stuffy nose and slightly sick or maybe that was the cause for the singing?

While Dumber was struggling with doing this stupid work for “The CEO” I am getting the same problem from the other owner, The Head Monkey. It seems they both want to focus on something that is unimportant in the business. In my case I get 1 -2 calls a day from the Head Monkey wanting his auto signature in his emails to look a certain way. He wants his signature, and contact information to be the same for every person that received his email. That is totally NOT possible in today’s land of spam software and different architectures that companies all use. In other words I can make it look like what he wants if he only sends to people running windows and MS Outlook 2003. Once it goes to someone on a Unix system, an older version of Outlook, or to a free account like Yahoo or hotmail it changes. For example send the email to a Yahoo account and to protect from viruses they take all pictures, his signature for one, and convert it into an attachment and it does not display. FOCUS owners, naps, games of spider, auto signatures, and stupid reports are not what are needed at this time for Addroc.

The Head Monkey will be taking over a week off at the end of this month for vacation. Once again as Addroc is struggling with no money, the owners are leaving on vacation. In this case the only owner that wants the bank contacted for a loan. I can’t wait to see what “The CEO” does during the week the Head Monkey is out of the office and no one to hold her at all accountable. She will either be in here raising chaos everywhere or gone herself depending on which meds she takes that week.

The new temp that Dumber is speaking about is very friendly. She joined us for Family Feud yesterday and today. She is also talking about walking with us at break. I know Dumber said she was too friendly but he has lost site of reality. Most people are friendly it is his being at Addroc so long now that both of us have forgotten what real people are like. Addroc has changed Dumber and I forever to be safer and not expose ourselves. This worries me for future jobs. I hope and pray Addroc has not changed us to the bad side forever and we will someday again be reputable, contributing members of society.

Today the new temp ate lunch with me. Dumber took off for lunch today. He needed to do some stuff that he could not take the chance of the new temp following him on his walk. So here I sat with the new temp and she brought paper and pencil to today’s lunch. She had a way to spice up our guesses for watching Family Feud. I also got to hear about her moving around as she was trying my Dill Pickle Potato Chips. Dumber and I have a new friend.

Dumb

2006-04-11T07:20:00.000-06:00

The CEO pulled me into her office early on Monday morning to find out how thing were going. She asked me “Did Bill tell you that I want you to work over time to get this project done?” To which I said “Actually the project is taking me less time then I thought and I shouldn’t need to work any overtime. I should be done tonight.” Her response even shocked me “Really, so soon?”

I told her that it would take me 4 to 5 days to finish the project back on Thursday morning of last week. So if you add this up Thursday Friday and Monday would in fact be 3 days, just 1 day shy of my original estimate. This leaves me wondering what was she thinking when I said 4 to 5 days maybe she thought 4 or 5 weeks.

I am now 100% sure that she has no concept of time at all. I think she believes she works 80 hours a week even though she’s lucky to work 30. There has been 2 different times that she has flat out told me she has no concept of time anymore. One of the times was when she was talking about the 3 month old copier and said we’ve had it for more then 2 years.

The new lady they have brought in to temp might be a little to friendly. She has been here for all of 1 day and I already know more about her then Marlin who was here 6 months. She has recently moved here and is also recently divorced. And to be honest I really don’t care about any of this.

Dumber

Dumb and Dumber trying to be Smart and Smarter

2006-04-10T13:36:00.000-06:00

For some reason whenever Melman says anything to me my heart starts to race. This morning she had a problem with her computer freezing. As I am trying to fix it the whole time I am near a sweat and can’t wait to get away from her area. At the moment I think it is running okay.

I also found out today that I am “DA MAN” according to Gollum. She introduced me as DA Computer Man to the new temp. Gollum was walking the new temp around showing her the place and people. Remember the last one walked out with Marlin thinking we are all crazy. Do you think the old temp is right?

Dumber told me today he got off his butt and sent out 3 resumes this weekend. I guess his job hunting has begun again. I sent out 2 myself of which one was this morning. The place that I was sending it to requested it to be in PDF format so I had to use Acrobat here at work this morning to convert my resume to a PDF format. Then I attached and sent I the email I had ready.

My wife, Dumber, and another friend all seem to think it is a good idea and I should pursue an idea for a job change. I guess I will begin working on it more and see if I can make the numbers work. The idea is for me to go out on my own with computer support contracts. I already take care of 6 other small business clients and picked up yet another one this last week. The idea is to then approach “The CEO” and move Addroc to a support contract with Dumb Computer Services. They could be my primary contract for now but would hopefully allow me to come and go from here more easily and give me time to grow with more new clients to replace my income. I think I can do this, make a bit less for a while but move to become a free man again and save Addroc some money.

I also am a partner with a guy that finds government contracts for subbed out work for small businesses. There is a huge amount of different IT work out there needing done. An ex co-coworker from an previous job emailed me this weekend that he is ready to start bidding on some of this work through Dumb Computer Services. So that could be yet another avenue of growth outside of Addroc. Maybe I could even hire Dumber on some of this work as well and he and I would both be out of Addroc.

Dumb

10 Hours

2006-04-10T07:07:00.000-06:00

Friday was what I would consider a water shed moment for me, or maybe an epiphany or maybe I finally got it through my thick head. I need to get out of Addroc no matter what the cost, well maybe not at any cost, but you get the idea. For some reason I have always held out hope that once we got rid of Marlin and Melman everything would be fine and we would all be one big happy family. The only problem is we still have The CEO to deal with.

As I mentioned in Fridays post The CEO came to me with another pointless report to work on. I compiled all the information put it in an email and said that it would take me 4 to 5 days to complete and sent to her and Bill. Well The CEO was not happy with my estimated time to complete and she pulled Bill into her office to tell him about her displeasure.

Bill came out of her office and called me over to his desk. He told me “The CEO” is not happy with this project taking 4 to 5 days and she wants you to work 10 hour days until it’s done.” I just sat there stunned for a couple of seconds and I looked at Bill and told him “No, I’m not going to.” I went on and explained “I can understand working overtime for certain projects but I won’t do it for one of The CEO’s pet projects.” This is a project that in 2 weeks no one will look at or even use, why should I work overtime.

Bill came over to my desk a little later in the day and he said that him and the Nutty Professor have talked about it and they are going to the leadership team and try and get her off my back with stupid projects and get me focused on things that might actually help the company. I nicely said thank you, but the entire time I was thinking I’ve heard this before.

Dumber

We don't need money we have each other

2006-04-07T14:00:00.000-06:00

Now here is a fun picture for everyone to admire. Dumber working with his new bouncy ball you found earlier in the week. He sure is proud of that ball. I only wish I had one to work off of also. Wait scratch that last thought.

This morning Melman hollers out her computer won’t work and she can’t print. Now normally I am okay with this and want to fix the problem. For some reason when she is the one having the problem I get a pissed off feeling in my stomach. I think it is because I have come to detest her so much. BUT, in any case there was a problem so I set off to find and fix it. I found a hub messing up as ended up being an easy fix. Now I need to just try and settle down again and work the day away.

I even noticed the Head Monkey was spackling over the hole in the wall of Marlins temporary home down stairs. I think he is happy she is gone also.

Dumber seems a little worried about the cast flow of Addroc. As he told me his theory I just looked at him and thought she is not doing it to screw the Head Monkey. It would hurt her just as equally. I think she more worried about naps, her addition to her house and other things that Addroc affairs seem to be a low priority. If I was in control of a company I know I would have been talking to the bank a long time ago and been working every possible hour to make it all come together. So I see it as no sense of urgency from owners must mean there are not any worries. No worries Dumber.

Melman in normal Friday fashion told us not to print on the printer as she was getting ready to print checks for the week. As she stood there with a stack of check it looked like a package of bouncy balls to me.

Now don’t get confused here as I am not talking about Gollum. When our HR gal, Counselor Troy, was going to be out on maternity leave Addroc brought in a temp worker to cover front office work etc. Apparently our Temp gal left a note yesterday that she quit and would not be back today. Hmm the stress ran her off and she only needed to just hang out for another 6 weeks. New Addroc slogan “Addroc this jail is looking for a few good people.” That really doesn’t work. Sorry.

With all this Dumber is expecting the Lawyers to be coming back at any time. He might be right since suddenly the good DR is in the house again. I wonder if she knows there is not money to pay for her services.

Dumb

We need money

2006-04-07T07:36:00.000-06:00

Some days I feel like my life, or should I say my blog entries, sound like a broken record then a life that anyone would want to have. Here goes anyway. The CEO paid me another visit yesterday and once again as you all may guess she is having me work on a completely pointless project for the bank stuff again.

It is so hard to sit there and listen to her ideas and not tell her that it is a complete waste of time. Most people I work with I could in fact do just that, “your idea is stupid, now please go away”. Maybe a little nicer, but you get the idea. But with The CEO any hint of me thinking her idea is stupid would turn into me thinking she is stupid not the idea. Everyone comes up with stupid ideas, some more then others.

I went downstairs after my meeting with The CEO to tell the Professor that I was not going to be doing any worth while for the next week. While I was in his area one of the Penguins came over and started talking to us. To my surprise I smelled the very strong smell of alcohol emanating from someone in the room. I knew it wasn’t me and I was pretty sure it wasn’t the Professor. And the penguin was talking much louder then normal so I’m pretty sure it was him. Yes that’s right it was 9 am and it appears this Penguin was already drunk.

I had a very interesting talk with Melman before I left yesterday which really freaked me out. She mentioned to me that we were officially out of cash and it would take about $350,000 extra dollars to get current on all of our bills. She also said that we have gotten just about every dollar in for this month that we are going to get in. She also said that we have pretty much stopped paying all of our vendors and started charging new materials on credit cards. In addition to not paying our vendors we have also stopped paying our credit cards.

This last part really got me worried, if we stop paying credit cards how much longer will we last. Now to me there is a very easy solution to all of this, take out the loan pay off the vendors and the credit cards, but The CEO doesn’t want to. Why doesn’t she? Does she not realize that if we don’t get cash Addroc will only be open a couple more months? Is her goal to screw the Head Monkey (her ex husband) in the only way she has left? I’m leaning towards the last one, I think she may try to take everyone down just to get back at the Head Monkey. Just when I thought things were going to get better this happens.

Dumber

Introducing the Skipper

2006-04-06T13:31:00.000-06:00

I pulled in and was right at time to be here. Been on the close and late time lately I have to get out of home earlier I guess. There is road construction on both of my paths to the jail and it is messing with my timing. Anyway as I was close to late today I am parking and notice no Melman yet. A short moment of happiness hit me as I pondered the thought that maybe she would just not show up for work now either with Marlin gone. I got to my desk and 5 minutes later (late as normal) Melman walked in. DANG

They didn’t wait very long in moving Marlins stuff. It had only been a couple hours and the filing cabinets have been moved back upstairs and though they have not told me yet I expect I will be moving the computer back upstairs today or tomorrow. I think, no I know Bill is ecstatic to have this all happening so quickly. Hell, we all are you can see the happiness in others around here as well. One more to go and looking and hoping it is real soon.

I walking by the conference room a while ago and the door was open. Inside sat a bunch of Monkeys, a couple Penguins, “The CEO”, The Head Monkey, Bill and the New Penguin Manager. In short there were more people in the “SALES” meeting that were not in sales then there were salesmen. The Penguin Manager, who I think has a lot of experience in business was talking about changes he see that could make Addroc run better between the Monkeys and the Penguins. Everyone in the room seemed to be listening intently. Dumber and I were talking about this and we think we have the new guys name. Since the Professor is his friend and recommended him to this job we think the new guy is the Skipper. He is going to help the rest of us on Addroc Island.

The problem resides in “The CEO” though she is sucking him in now as soon as it changes things here some direction she doesn’t like he will be undermined and dropped a notch. It is kind of like “The CEO” is the mole sabotaging the good intentions of the people they bring in to make Addroc grow.

Dumb

Bye Bye

2006-04-06T07:10:00.000-06:00

Well it appears to be moving day, yesterday that is. They had one of the Oomph Lompahs bring all of the notebooks and paper work that were in Marlin’s area upstairs to her old cell. I would consider this to be a good sign that she is not coming back. So what happened? Honestly I’m not really sure.

Marlin had a meeting with The CEO and Bill where I think they laid it out for her. If she disrespected anyone, she would be gone. If she screwed up work again she would be gone. I also found out that Marlin’s work was also going down hill, in other words she really didn’t care anymore and her work showed it.

I’m sure Marlin assumed when she was called into the meeting with these two that she was going to be fired. But because of the lawyers they didn’t, which in the end for addroc it’s probably a good thing. I think she had finally had enough and knew that even if they did fire her they had covered their butts and she was pretty well out of luck.

If anyone has questions or if you are unclear on something let us know and we will try and clear it up. I will say this, Bill is in a much better mood today.

One down one more to go.

Dumber

Marlin is GONE!

2006-04-05T13:01:00.000-06:00

Bill came over to me and asked if I mapped the printer downstairs to Marlin’s computer when we moved her downstairs? Remember she moved downstairs when the conflicts between Bill and her escalated the last time. I responded with yes she can print to the printer downstairs. He commented well she seems to be printing to our printer up here an awful lot. Questions I gained from that are:
1) Is the printer upstairs only allowed for personnel that are upstairs?
2) Is he trying to find some way to piss her off again and get even with her?
3) The printer downstairs is an ink jet, upstairs is a laser people can’t use the laser?
4) He doesn’t want to see her upstairs anymore?
5) He hates her sitting on the chair staring at Dumber as much as Dumber does?

This just in! I am posting early because of a new change. Marlin was talked to again this morning and just before lunch she packed up everything and left and has not returned. At this point it looks like she has abandoned her job and Bill and “The CEO” are awaiting to see if she returns. With personal belonging all gone I would say she is not returning. I have been instructed to change setting in the permissions in our system. More as it comes in.

Dumb

My daily cycle

2006-04-05T07:33:00.000-06:00

I seem to be squarely on a cycle of having a crazy day and the next day not having much going on. Not much happened yesterday, a little to quiet. Two things I have noticed with Marlin first she seems to be very uncomfortable around me after her blow up with Bill. I don’t really care but it reminds me to be very careful. The 2nd thing I have been noticing is that Marlin seems to be losing weight lately.

Now if she was in fact overweight I would congratulate her, unfortunately Marlin is not overweight. She actually is a fairly thin young lady and if you didn’t know her she would be considered attractive. My concern is that I’m wondering if some of her extreme mood changes are brought on by another condition and these are just the symptoms. Now I know I can’t do anything about it, and yes I know I don’t even like her, but I still wonder.

On a lighter note I was taking to The Professor who said new guy came up and asked him “Why did The CEO hire me as the penguin manager, they really don’t need one”. Because of this I would have to vote for not bothering to find new guy a name, I don’t think he will stick around long enough to put it to good use.

Dumber

She keeps Finding me.

2006-04-04T13:40:00.000-06:00

Where is the picture of this huge ball Dumber. I took one so you could share your glorious moment and it is not posted. Also, R I am here and would never leave my loyal readers without a goodbye. As you know both Dumber and I usually let you all know when we go on vacation even.

I got called into “The CEO’s” office today to ask why I was buying some $1300 in programs. I said I am not buying anything right now so I am kind of lost in what you’re saying I am doing. She handed me a paper, written by a pregnant Oompa Loompa that is going to be working from home showing all the programs she would need loaded on her home machine to work from home. I immediately turned this conversation by saying yes she asked me about all this and I gave it to Bill for him to look into. At this point I have heard the Oompa Loompa wanting me to do work that I am not hearing management agree to and have again gave that to Bill for approval.

I also followed all this with I don’t agree to loading all these special programs on her home pc with licensing and such. We have a VPN (Virtual Private Network) installed and she can work from home and access her machine internally so she can work from home at no extra cost to Addroc. The New Penguin Manager (we need a name) agreed with me and “The CEO” in normal fashion not really knowing what she was agreeing too. I think I will have a couple of mad Oompa Loompas (mother and daughter) real soon as I personally think they wanted these programs loaded on a home machine for other personal use and to maintain the control of the programs.

AGAIN “The CEO” came after me today. This time because her removable storage key would not let her save any information on it. It is a 2GB USB key that she had me buy for her to move her files around on. I think the contacts on it have worn and it loses connection. So I have a 256MB USB key here that I went to move her information to. “The CEO” says “will that hold all of the information that I use from mine?” I said I am sure it will but we will see. When I moved all her information she was using 11MB. That right I said 11 Meg. For you fellow nerds out there that is NOTHING in data AND she thinks she needs a 2 Gig key.

Dumb

A busy day

2006-04-04T07:11:00.000-06:00

Monday I was walking up the stairs when The CEO asked if I could come into her office. My first thought was that she was going to have me put more pointless information on her pointless reports. Instead she asked me “Where you here last Thursday. You know when Marlin blew up.” This took totally off guard and I kind of stuttered “um yes”. She proceeded to ask me “Do you remember what Marlin said, I was so got off guard at the time I’m not sure what I heard.”

Once again this caught me completely off guard and I had to formulate my thoughts before I said anything, which made it sound as if I was uncomfortable with telling her what happened. So The CEO reassured me by saying “Its ok you can say whatever she said.” It was like she was telling its ok to drop the F bomb in here. So I told her and she just said “um that’s right” and wrote it down.

She of course kept talking and told me that her and Bill had talked to the lawyer earlier in the day and it was a good thing that they didn’t fire Marlin, even though they thought about it. The Lawyer told them that since this was her first offence of this type it would have been a bad thing. Stupid lawyers. We talked a few more minutes about how disrespectful what Marlin did and how The CEO, in her 40 years of work had never seen someone act like this.

Dumb mentioned in Thursday’s post that he talked to Secretary Penguin and Marlin had come up to her and asked if she had talked to the IT guys about what had happened. The Secretary Penguin said no why what happened. Well the Secretary Penguin actually told a lie right there because I had gone down and told her all that had happened. I thought this was very cool that she didn’t say anything and wanted to say thank you to her.

So I went up and told her thank you very much. She told me that not only did Marlin ask her once but she has asked her 3 times if Dumb or I have talked. I was amazed once again because Marlin was truly just looking for someone else to get in trouble. I’m sure she would have gone and told The CEO that look Dumber is spreading rumors about me.

The secretary Penguin also mentioned that Marlin told one of the Oomph Lompa’s that she thought she would be fired in the next couple of days. I so wish this was true but I don’t think it will happen that quickly. Addroc is trying to cover there ass here and they don’t want a lawsuit once they do fire her.

At the end of the day yesterday I was doing some work on the computer in the conference room with the TV in it. I came in to do some more work and there’s Marlin sitting there watching TV. Of course I did a couple of things and quickly got out. I waited about 15 minutes and decided it was safe to go back in. I was sitting there doing some more work when Melman came in, once again I got up as quickly as possible and left. Again I waited about 20 minutes and went back in to do some work. Well this time Melman had passed so much gas that the entire room stunk that I decided to turn off the computer and try it another day.

Monday was also a huge day in finding stuff in the parking lot. Not only did I find a penny but I also found a giant blue ball. This is by far the best find yet and I can’t wait to throw it at Dumb when he doesn’t expect him and almost knock him out.

Dumber

Changes

2006-04-03T13:54:00.000-06:00

The time change happened this weekend. We come in today and the first thing we here is Melman telling us the time clocks are off. This happened to us last time the time changed as the clocks need to be manually changed to the new time on time changes with a time sync. Dumber and I forgot it but after it happened this morning I can remember it being the same thing last time. Ohh well I am not coming in on my weekend to do the changes although I would have in the past but when I can’t flex work time for my life I can’t flex my personal time for them either. No worries!

Dumber and I was talking the other day and he was noticing that he is seeing a complete change of people upstairs at Addroc. I kind of chuckled as this is his first time. I have in the 3 years I been here seen it change completely 2 times and this will be the 3rd. I have also seen 3 different HR people, 4 other Secretarial Penguins, 4 Penguin Managers, 4 Oompa Loompa Managers. So in the 3 years I have been here is that a high rate of turnover? I think so!

I was listening to Dumber talking to Melman this morning and a thought hit me. He asked what happened to her fence when I realized that even when Melman is gone from Addroc, Dumber still lives near her and will still get to see her. He is so lucky that way!

Dumb

No body

2006-04-03T07:20:00.000-06:00

No “The CEO”, No Head Monkey, No Marlin, realization that Melman might actually be gone makes for a fairly relaxed Friday. I really wonder how much longer Marlin will last. In fact I really don’t understand why she has stuck around as long as she has. Anyway Friday was a good day, and for now I will just hang onto that.

Unbelievable as it may seem Marlin has come back for another day. At what point does she hate a place enough that she doesn’t just walk out and never show up again to.

And Thank you to Dumb's friend who sent the "Nerds" candy.

Dumber

Full Day of Work

2006-03-31T13:25:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I was working away and there was a whole lot of whispering going on with Dumber, Melman, and the Secretarial Penguin. I pretty much kept my back turned knowing Dumber would fill me in later. You should have just finished reading all that happened and as Dumber told me this he is stressing out. Dumber is seeing the glass half empty and I am seeing it half full here. I was thinking happy days are starting. I even phoned Mrs. Dumb and she said “woohoo”.

I stopped by the Secretarial Penguins desk and she told me that Marlin had been to her twice asking if she heard of what happened. She said she knew something happened but not what. Marlin asked if she had talked to Dumber or Dumb to which the Secretarial Penguin replied “no”. Apparently Marlin cares what Dumber and I have to say more then Melman OR she is afraid to talk to us and is trying to get the scoop? I think it is the later.

I told Dumber that looking back I saw this all coming down with Marlin. I didn’t know it at the time but I saw her progression and demeanor changing over the last couple days till she freaked out again. I seriously think she has some chemical imbalance now and it not just nuts. Something is wrong with Marlin and I hope she leaves before anyone else catches it.

It was kind of funny today. The Head Monkey had the day off today so “The CEO” strolled in at 9:30 turned on her office light, stood there and looked around her office, turned the light out and left for the day. I guess her turning the light on and off was enough work for the day. Also needing noted here is Marlin is not here today. Rumor is she is distraught with what happened yesterday and needed the day off. Somehow didn’t she start the problem?

This is the same problem with Melman. She said she can’t handle the stress here and it is affecting her health. She even said that is why she left the last company she was at. Again do you think, somehow, someway, she is creating the very stress she is trying to get away from?

Dumb

A bad day

2006-03-31T07:08:00.000-07:00

I started out the day with really high hopes for the day, but after about 2 hours I knew the day would be one of the worst. The day started out with The CEO asking me to put more pointless items on the pointless report that I have been creating.

After this Marlin came upstairs dropped some papers off at Bill’s desk. She obliviously did something wrong because as she walked away Bill sternly called after her and said “Marlin come back here.” To which Marlin came back and told Bill “You better leave me the **ck alone” and while walking away she pointed at Bill and said “You better do it”.

Fortunately as Marlin was blowing up The CEO walked out, perfect timing for once in her life. Marlin marched by The CEO not skipping a beat. The CEO called after Marlin saying “Marlin come back here”. To which Marlin ignored her. The CEO called after her again “Marlin you had better come back here right now.” To which again Marlin ignored her and just walked downstairs.

Now I half way assumed that Marlin would just keep walking out the door, because if I was so mad at my manager that I told them to leave me the fu** alone I don’t think I would be back, but not Marlin. The CEO told Bill to go down and get her, which he did.

While he was down stairs I heard him raise his voice at her to which Marlin said, while crying “Will you just stop yelling at me”. I later found out from Bill that he went downstairs and asked her to come up. To which she told him that she controlled herself and she did not want to come up. To which Bill told her that either she comes upstairs or she quits. They both came up stairs with Gollum, acting HR person, and went into The CEO’s office.

I was sitting at my desk stunned, and waiting for Marlin to come out of the office screaming and yelling. That’s when Melman walked up to me and said “I told Bill I was done yesterday. I told him that it was to stressful and my health was beginning to fail because of it. I told him that I was not sure when I would be leaving maybe in 1 day 2 weeks or 1 month but it would be soon and he needed to get ready for when I leave.”

Once again I was completely stunned and very taken aback by her telling me this. At one point she asked me my opinion about her leaving and if she should. I told her that she probably should leave if it was affecting her health that bad. I did mention though that she should find a way to deal with stress a little better for her next job.

About 30 minutes later I saw Marlin and Gollum come out of The CEO’s office and head down stairs. That’s it I’m thinking to myself!! They didn’t fire her? You have got to be kidding me. Who gets off with telling their boss to leave them the **ck alone and gets away with it.

Not to long after that The CEO decided to pay me a visit. The short of the story is that I didn’t understand what she wanted with the report and that the reports I gave her where completely wrong. By the end of the conversation I still had no clue as to what she was talking about but I managed to make some changes and we will see if she likes them or not.

TGIF

Dumber

Move over Dumber I’m coming in too!

2006-03-30T13:38:00.000-07:00

Dumber spoke to soon. I was reading his post and here came “The CEO” to ask him to do all kinds of new work for her. I never turned around but I could just tell he was enjoying every minute of this close shared time he is getting with “The CEO”. Way to go Dumber, no wonder she turns on her charm when she is around you, as you are such a nice buddy to her and The New Guy.

Later “The CEO” returned to Dumber again. This time she needed more changes to a report. As I listened I could see she was so frustrated with not getting the information on the report she wanted. I have seen that frustration when “The CEO” has had me do something. She asked for one thing and then when you give it to her she is confused. What I found out is she would hear someone say something they are doing in their company and she would come and ask me for that same thing not really knowing what it is she is asking for. She did not understand what she asked for so when she got it she didn’t know what to do with it. The same thing is happening to Dumber right now.

What I find funny is she has not even talked to the Banker yet and she is this flustered to find the information. I know this because I saw a follow-up email from the Head Monkey to Bill informing him that he, Head Monkey, has told “The CEO” that Bill is to start conversations with the Banker. Thus I can make the assumption the Banker does not have a clue we are going to ask fro money yet. Just think if “The CEO” is this flustered and not talking to the Banker yet how bad it will get for Dumber when she does.

At lunch I was trying to comfort Dumber some as he is in the hole of despair. Then this afternoon it started on me. Bill needed to know all kinds of questions about the computers that we use. “The CEO” wanted to know why I had some computers sitting around that were not being used, what AMD stood for, why I called a machine by a certain name. All this information she wanted is because she is trying to find places she thinks we been spending money so she can find a way to not go to the Banker. “The CEO” is trying with all her might to find someone to blame or a fall guy for why we are out of money instead of answering to her hiring more over-head, and sleeping away the money.

Yes, I said sleeping above. I was going to check on some stuff and I saw her come wheeling into the parking lot. Note: She drives like everyone else owes her the right a way and she is the BOSS. When I returned up the stairs to my desk not 5 minutes after I saw her driving in she had already went to her office closed the door turned out the light and all together now LAID DOWN FOR A NAP.

Where is that cake with the file everyone keeps saying they are going to bring to Dumber and I?

Dumb

Not to bad

2006-03-30T07:09:00.000-07:00

I’m hoping yesterday was the beginning of a good rest of the week, I was able to complete the reports for The CEO. She seemed to be happy with the reports and accepted them as complete. I still have a nagging feeling though that she will come back and ask for something else.

I was talking to The Professor yesterday and he said The CEO finally explained what she wanted from him. After she was done he asked her if this information was a top priority still. She told him that she really didn’t care if it took him 3 weeks to finish it because she didn’t really want to go to the bank and ask for money.

The Professor told me I know what would happen though. The Head Monkey, her fellow business partner, would come and ask her why she hadn’t gone to the bank yet. To which The CEO would say “The Professor has not gotten my report to me yet.” I completely and totally agree with him, I’m sure she would have loved to blame me about not going to the bank too.

The more I think about it yesterday wasn’t all that bad of a day. Marlin didn’t come into work, I didn’t have to deal with The CEO’s ramblings and I left a half hour early.

Some more good news from yesterday, I’m already the new guys buddy. Yeah you heard that correct, I’m his buddy. He called me on the phone I helped him out and as he hung up he said “Hey thanks buddy”. Wow what a huge privilege to be some bodies buddy after such a short amount of time.

Dumber

Hanging on the Side of the Hill

2006-03-29T14:01:00.000-07:00

Bill left early on Tuesday to enjoy the nice warm spring day. As soon as he left Melman left and went on a visiting spree through out the building. Later when she returned she was laughing and talking loudly having a party. I thought she was on the phone until I got up to hand someone something over near her area. Then I noticed that Marlin was hidden behind the cube wall with her feet on the chair and tucked into the corner like she was hiding while they visited. Hmmm and they have too much work to get it all done and keep staying late on overtime while hollering that there is no money in our accounts. Does anyone else see the same issues I see?

R. I will watch a little closer now and let you know what happens. It seems “The CEO” is flirting with Dumb and if he starts to flirt back I will let you know. Personally I think I will go slap him first though.

Our time clocks were a little off today and needed the time synced. Dumber did it for the Oompa Loompa and I thought since he was doing that I would use the same timing to make an adjustment to the server’s time. I made the 2 minute change and walked back to my desk and Melman yells did you just change the time again. I said yes, and apparently she is just sitting there watching the time on her screen? It is amazing. I been going to make this adjustment for a month but dumber kept saying doesn’t do it as he knows the pain it is with Melman and her 1 minute differences

The Head Monkey decided he wanted the company logo and his signature at the bottom of his emails. He wanted it to be perfect to show Addroc off and that he was proud of his company. He will want everyone’s email to have this same style signature. The beauty of it all is to get all the information the way he wants it most computers don’t use that font so when someone outside of Addroc gets the email it will be different, so to fix this it has to be a picture to retain the look. It is fine like Dumber said it all pays the same for me to take a day to get this to his liking.

Julie had me wondering on the Wig Wag Candy Bar so I did a search. I found this page that lists all the sugar wonders of the past. http://www.sugarmountain.ca/buy/discontinued_products.htm. Kind of makes a person sad to see some of those candies have gone away.

Dumb

Sliding Down

2006-03-29T07:14:00.000-07:00

I have begun my slide down the mountain side, into the valley of despair. I guess I have been enjoying life a little too much and this week, which only consists of 2 days so far, has been a really long week. The CEO and I have been going back and forth on a couple of reports that she claims she needs to go to the bank with. Each time she gives me a little more information on what she wants enabling me to get closer to the desired product.

Through our conversations about the reports I have noticed that she is terrified of going to the bank and asking for money. The reason for this is that she knows that they will test her knowledge of business and how Addroc works. Unfortunately, as she has proven again and again, she really doesn’t have a clue and this is really stressing her out.

Can I also mention here that The CEO is completely leaving Bill, the Controller, out of this process. Anytime I have seen a loan be taken out typically it will go through finance and owners / presidents have been there as more of a support role. Not for The CEO she is bouncing all of her ideas off the geeky programmer guy that only has half the story.

Yesterday Marlin was upstairs talking to Melman for a good 20 minutes and they were driving me nuts so I went downstairs. I would also like to add that Marlin has taken up the practice of sitting on the back of Melman’s extra chair and placing her feet on the cushion where she should sit. It’s just one more thing about her that gets under my skin.

Anyway I went downstairs and told Secretary Penguin that if I have to listen to Melman and Marlin talk for one more minute I was going to scream. She looked at me and said “What Marlin is sitting around talking. She just came over asked me to enter time because she was way to busy with a big project from Bill.” Yes you heard that correct Marlin gave someone else her work so she could just sit around and talk.

Since I’m on such a role of complaining about my co-workers Marlin does something else that just drives me nuts. She will just all of a sudden sit next the printer or on a couch, waiting for a print or someone, and stare off into la la land. It really creeps me out and I can’t tell, is she looking at me? Or maybe she sees space aliens running around? All I know is I wish she would stop it.

Is it Friday yet.

Dumber

What Are You Talking About

2006-03-28T13:52:00.000-07:00

WOW I amazed “The CEO” today. She came and asked me what the email was for the new guy. I set his up the same as everyone else is in the company (FirstInitial)(LastName)@ addroc.com. She was amazed when I showed to push the “TO” button on the email and his name showed in the list. She asked what name I used for the Professor and I showed her to which she left all excited they were both in the list. She didn’t know I did that. What does she think I do is what I wonder?

Ok imagine this scenario. You go to buy a new computer and the guy asks you what size of hard drive, ram size, front side bus speed, agp, pci or pci-express video card, 5.1 or 7.1 audio, etc do you want. You look at him and think to yourself I don’t know all this I just want a computer to send emails to my friends and write letters on. This is the exact scenario that “The CEO” is living in when asked business question about Addroc by the banker. This would be why “The CEO” does not like the banker.

The difference is both of these though is if the person is just a home computer user they don’t have a clue to all those technical questions, but if the person is an IT professional all those questions mean a lot and they will specify what they need. The same is true for the banking questions and our “CEO”. The problem is she is “The CEO” and like the IT professional she should know the answers and not be the incompetent person she is in that position.

Poor Dumber, “The CEO” steps up to Dumber and bats her eyes and flirts with a “I need to talk to you.” I start listening to “The CEO” ask for stuff to happen and all she wants is to push a button and everything happens, the problem is she doesn’t know what to have happen. I listen and as Dumber explains something she leans back on the filing cabinet like she is shy and changes the conversation as she is not in the conversation for business purposes. She is trying to use your female, flirting influence on Dumber to get what she wants. The game of get even with the Head Monkey and Nutty Professor has begun with Dumber in the middle.

Apparently the flirting with Dumber wore “The CEO” out she had to take a nap today. Normally naps are saved for days when she shows up to work at normal hours but today was her late day in, 10 am, so something had to wear her out.

Dumb

Money and reports

2006-03-28T07:28:00.000-07:00

I came in Monday and wham The CEO hit me with questions. I spent the first part of the morning creating a report that I thought she had asked for. Once I was done I took her the final product and she said no I wanted this, actually it took about 20 minutes for me to figure out what she wanted but hopefully this time I’ll be closer.

The report she wants is very similar to another report we already have. However The CEO has made the old report so complicated that no one can understand it. Yesterday wasn’t all that bad I have finally just settled in and accepted what ever comes at me and mange with what I’m given the best I can. I have accepted that no matter what, it all pays the same and for the time being that’s good enough.

The CEO also told me yesterday that she doesn’t like our banker and hates having to go and ask them for money. I wonder if this is because our banker is rude, I doubt it. I think it’s more likely that the bank expects The CEO to be just that manager of a company. They expect her to know what’s going on and have a really good understanding of the business.

The CEO also went to The Professor and asked him to complete some work for her. Of course she was completely unclear as to what she wants. He keeps asking me what does she want, she told me that you where going export some information to excel. Yesterday though The CEO came to me and asked me “what are you going to give to the professor?” When I told the Professor this he looked at me and said “she has no idea what she asked me to do!!” I just looked at him and said “That kind of goes without saying.” He turned around and walked off and I just laughed at him.

Dumber

Setups Coming

2006-03-27T13:28:00.000-07:00

I would first like to thank those of you that wished me a happy birthday. Mrs. Dumb worked very hard to make this weekend a special one for me. She had a surprise birthday party for me on Friday night that even Dumber attended. By the way he gave me 40 bouncy balls. On Saturday lots of people sang to me at the softball fields and she gave me a present which I am very happy to get. I will soon be jumping out of a plane at 17,000 feet in a tandem skydive. Geronimo!!

I’m walking through the Penguins area and they are all placing bets. I stop and listen for a minute and the bet is how long will the new guy last. Times they were all mentioning was May and June timeframes. Addroc has hired three other people to manage the Penguins in the time I have been here and all have failed and left or were fired. I think the sabotage of the Penguins has already begun on the New Guy. The Cowboy Penguin told me this morning also that another Penguin is not happy about this new manager over him and basically said he will not listen to him or he will quit. If he quits the other 3 will all quit and thus they put their hold on Addroc which will again mean the New Guy Manager is already headed for troubles.

This marks the second week in a row that “The CEO” has forgotten to bring me the back up tapes for the next week. I wonder if she is preoccupied with other issues. Wait what am I saying? She can’t focus on more then one item at a time anyway.

The Head Monkey called me on the phone all excited and worried. He was sending out an email to 2 different people and Outlook kept telling him he didn’t have valid email addresses and would not send. I went and looked to find he forgot the “;” between the two email addresses. When I showed him he thought that was stupid to have to do that and again said “So that is called a semi-colon? Can’t we tell MS to not use those? Who would know to put a “;” between emails?” I don’t have an answer for that.

Help R. Dumber is throwing a bouncy ball at me. He has not hit me YET but with my slower reaction time now he has me worried.

Dumb

Money Trouble

2006-03-27T07:16:00.000-07:00

Friday was a fairly stressful day. The Nutty Profess and the Head Monkey decided that today was going to be the day that The CEO was going to agree to the line of credit. A little background as to why they can force her to agree. When The CEO and the head monkey got a divorce they brought The Nutty Professor in as a third member of the board of directors. The board of directors can vote and even override The CEO.

Well I found out that the Head Monkey and The nutty professor had decided to take a vote on whether or not to take the line of credit. Needless to say The CEO was going to lose. Let’s just say she was pissed. At one point she came out to tell the Nutty Professor something and it looked like she had been crying. I think sometime next week she’ll come back with her fists a blazing and causing anybody and everybody to have a bad week.

My theory looks like its already coming true for Monday. I came in this morning and I was still unloading my stuff, jacket and lunch, and The CEO came out and said she needed to see me after I got settled. I went into her office and she said actually we will have to wait I need to speak with Bill before you. I said ok and quickly ran away.

Dumber

“The ALWAYS Available CEO”

2006-03-24T12:51:00.000-07:00

During break walk I told Dumber I have nothing to write for the blog tomorrow but then again tomorrow has not happened yet. I got back and decided to go and meet the new guy and start working on his setup to the computer system. Bill gave me his name just before break but I needed a password to set him up with to really get it going. I got that from the new guy and as I was leaving his desk to go and begin working on his stuff here comes “The CEO”. She asks me if I have him all set up to which I replied I just got his name 20 minutes ago and his password information now. I am going to work on it. She looks at me like she wanted to kill me and says “you could have come and asked me.” Now here is the problems I see with that statement.

1) You left early yesterday after my lunch after telling me go him set up, so “The CEO” was not here.
2) Today “The CEO” was in meetings with Dumber etc. Again not available.
3) The new guy just got here this afternoon so he was not available till now.
4) If you read Dumber’s post all afternoon “The CEO”, the Nutty Professor, The Head Monkey and Bill been in meetings with “The CEO”. No one available.
5) Bill tried to get the new guys name etc from the HR people to which they all said “The CEO” is keeping all his paper work and didn’t know the information. NO INFO AVAILABLE
6) Does anyone see a pattern here?
7) Ever since I got yelled at and flex time removed I am not working anything extra for Addroc thus to catch “The CEO” etc when I am at lunch or on break is not going to happen. That is my time.
8) And last but not least to ask her this information meant I would have to talk to her and that only leads to further issues. Not going to happen unless last resort.

I had all the information and was working on it and Bill came and found me. He said “The CEO” attacked him with what does it take to get Dumb to get that computer set up. He SAID that he told her “that they needed to get me information before I could do the work.”

I take off to go for a quick walk to get some things in Oompa Loompa land and as I pass into the cafeteria I notice the lights are out. They are normally on. I step in and Marlin is sitting in the corner all by herself. I say “oohhh the lights are out.” Marlin replies with “I just needed a break for a minute you can turn them on if you need.” I left the room on a direct course as I did NOT want to get caught in a dark room alone with Marlin.

WOW whole new “CEO” this morning smiling and happy. OK, what is the deal? She gave me my birthday card and was all sweet and happy. Sad that I have to wonder is the card booby trapped?

I then get a call from the purchasing guys that I have a balloon delivery. So I go back and here is a box with a WONKA Candy assortment as a happy birthday present to me from a friend. Thanks for the GREAT SUGARRRRRRR, umm I haven’t started eating it I promise. AND Dumber’s mouth is watering.

Dumb

spare change

2006-03-24T07:12:00.000-07:00

Money Money Money. Would anyone happen to have a spare $500,000 US Dollars laying around? Before you agree to give us that money let me explain what it’s for. Here at Addroc our cash flow is running a little tight. We have a lot of work just not enough cash coming in to make up the difference. We have hired a couple of big salaried people in the past couple months, further draining our cash.

Now according to what I have heard the Nutty Professor say we have about 2 more months before we end up potentially not being able to pay any of the bills. Any normal company would go out borrow some money and float themselves along until more money comes in. But not a company with The CEO at the helm. Everyone else wants to get the loan but not The CEO, she would rather hire more people.

Any takers? I didn’t think so, but I thought it would be worth a shot.

Tomorrow is Dumb’s 40th birthday, if you get a chance wish him a happy birthday.

Dumber

Gun Shy with Knives

2006-03-23T09:53:00.000-07:00

Okay since you all think the bouncy ball is better then how about this. Yesterday while walking through the great parking lot I found a 10 inch long knife. I think the parking lot is telling me to save the fish in the bouncy ball and cut the bouncy ball in half and release the fish.

So I am now working on moving the computers to different places per “The CEO’s” urgent request to me. As I get to the Secretarial Penguins desk she says “ohh you’re here early. “The CEO” told me that if you didn’t come by a certain time I was to hunt you down.” I am thinking hmm what? Did she not think? (I intended that sentence to be a question of her not thinking) I would get it done. Well I moved her to the new desk and she then wanted me to move the printer closer to her. Then the Hippy Penguin chirped in “besides with you having to walk to the printer now I can see the waggle. You want fries with that shake baby?” Everyone laughed and I was the only one frantically looking around for Marlin or Melman to be in the area and I would get the blame. Do you think I am gun shy?

I was working on another computer move and stopped by the Secretarial Penguins new area. She is not happy as now her monitor faces the isle some. She wanted it moved and I laughed and said and you think with my desk now upstairs having to put my back to everyone and work in the corner your slight monitor showing bothers me? She saw my point and put a plant on the corner of the desk to hide her monitor some. There are also these really fancy holes in the cubical walls that the Head Monkey put in a few years ago. He is going to put a plate over them now to plug them up. You see the Head Monkey and “The CEO” are very artistic in thinking and we have all these funky lights and decorative walls for our cells.

I saw something kind of disturbing at lunch on Family Feud. The family won the $20k and one of the men fell on the floor and started doing the snowman move. Another male in the family fell on top of the first man and started doing some bouncing. It was quite disturbing. Good thing I had my Fun Dip ate by that point.

Star I showed the picture of my moped. I don’t have an addiction to Fun Dip’s. I could give them up tomorrow. The people here you can read for yourself if they are crazy. Now where is that Fun Dip?

Dumb

1 more new guy

2006-03-23T07:11:00.000-07:00

A couple of days ago I told you that The CEO was interviewing a new guy for a new position. The CEO interviewed him and she told the professor, a couple of days later, that she didn’t think he was right for the position. She thought he would not accept her offer and even if he did she wasn’t sure if she would have him. She went on to tell the Professor that she thought maybe he was right for the position and maybe he should do this job.

The next day The CEO told the Professor that she got a really nice letter from new guy saying how much he enjoyed the interview and what a great company Addroc is. A quick side note, this was simply a thank you letter nothing more. But The CEO has no idea and thought the guy was being really nice.

Now fast forward a couple of days to yesterday and I see all the penguins going into an unscheduled meeting. They all came out and in comes new guy up to The CEO’s office. I find out later that this new guy is going to basically be the director of operation’s and will report to The CEO. I personally could care less, it has no bearing on me what so ever. But there is one positive I think I will be done, for a couple weeks, with having to deal with The CEO.

Needless to say the Professor was upset over this new hiring, since he was just promised the job. The CEO did pull him aside and told him that he is still a valuable member of Addroc and he would have a job here for a long time, if of course he wanted.

I will also add that these turn of events even surprised me, I didn’t think for a second they would have hired this guy. I can’t wait to look up his salary.

On a more personal note Mrs Dumber and I have been starting to try and eat more healthy foods the past couple of week. We had physical and my blood pressure came back a little high and her cholesterol was a little high. Nothing to big of a deal but it made us stop and realize we needed to change some things. What this means is that we have started to eat way to many vegetables / fiber products. Needless to say the past few days I have been extremely gassy. It got so bad yesterday I turned the fan on trying to push the smell over to dumb’s area. Secretly I was hoping somebody would blame Dumb for the smell but nobody did.

Dumber

It takes one to know one.

2006-03-22T13:11:00.000-07:00

Just as I am walking to lunch “The CEO” catches me in a BIG HURRY that I need to move the Secretarial Penguin to a new desk. This is followed with I need to move another computer to her desk for a new guy that she just hired. He is expected to be here by 1pm tomorrow and I need all this done now. I say okay and go to lunch and when I return from lunch “The CEO” is leaving for the day. All this work needing done now and she leaves. I think Dumber had it right the other day with his title of “do your work while I nap.”

I have been fighting a slow internet connection here at Addroc. Today I get an email form our ISP saying after exhausting testing and looking we can not find anything that would be slowing down your service. I find this funny as today the service is running like it should fast and normal. I know I have made a fix to a pc before and not told the person or said “hmm everything looks fine.” So with this knowledge I know very well that the ISP has made some change somewhere that they are not telling me. As I say “It takes one to know one.”

This also applies to Dumber and his ball and quarter. As I know he planted it by the way he found it by leading me down a different path in the cars and he just suddenly pops up with a quarter from his path. It takes one to know one.

So in my attempt to share what objects I have found lately I give you the picture of my recent find in the parking lot of goodies. As you can see I found the turd cam guys name tag from his uniform. Now I put it in all of your hands is the bouncy ball with a fish or my name tag the cooler item?

Dumb

Wasting away

2006-03-22T07:41:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was day 2 of me wasting my life working with The CEO. I went into her office to tell her about some changes I made and she asked me how we could create another report to check if the first report was correct or not. I went ahead sat down, knowing I would be in there for a long time, which I was. As I sat there I saw several people walk by look in and quickly look away. I know in their minds they were thinking “Thankfully its not me”.

Finally The CEO called somebody to ask them a question and it turned out this person needed help with a computer program. I saw my chance told The CEO I needed to leave right now to go help them and left the office. As I left I could see The CEO already starting to forget our conversation.

I walked by the conference room and saw that Marlin, Bill and Gollum(acting HR) talking about something. I’m pretty sure that it was about Marlin and something she has done lately. After about half an hour they came out and went their separate ways. Then about 2 hours later I noticed they where all back in the conference room. This is actually a pattern that I have noticed with Marlin. If she gets in trouble she will leave the meeting stew about what was said than call another.

On a brighter note I found a quarter in the parking lot yesterday. To which Dumb accused me of planting it, just like the new bouncy ball. I would like to go on record as saying that I did not plant the quarter or the ball. Dumb is the only one who has planted something in the parking lot, I think it’s his guilty conscience getting the best of him. I told you Star nothing but lies.

5 minutes into today I have already started day 3 of wasting my life with The CEO.

Dumber