Bianca

A good friend that's always going to have her own space in my life.

Pulling me back in

That jerk...

April 11th

One year later.

Unhinged

I'm fresh off a period of crunch time at work, which I documented over on Twitter as it was happening. It's a little long, but you get to witness the meltdown.

-All these wonderful rainy days squandered by being at work. 10:52 AM Jan 22nd
-oh, work. or "Why Fridays don't count anymore." 10:48 AM Jan 23rd
-Engineers on the weekend: There is no escape from the kingdom of the mole people. 11:08 AM Jan 23rd
-ok, enough unpaid work for one day. screw this, I'm going home. 5:53 PM Jan 23rd
-Oh look, it's annual bonus day at work. Wonder if we get one this year. 12:54 PM Jan 27th
-I am in desperate need to refocus on the things that are really important in my life. So, uh, Step 1: Breathing. 1:31 AM Jan 28th
-Way I see it, the average spout off. The smart realize reaction and hold tongue. The clever have a witty retort. Guess which I aim for? 1:50 AM Jan 28th
-You can tell it's going well at work when people start looking up the diagnostic guidelines for Stockholm Syndrome. 3:23 PM Jan 28th
-We can't decide if we should have a workplace pool regarding who will be the first person to have a mental meltdown, or the last. 4:15 PM Jan 28th
-ok, that's more than enough work for one day. stick a fork in me, I'm done. 8:25 PM Jan 28th
-All these long hours and unpaid overtime is starting to drag. I know, I'll get me a desk job and then...oh, wait. nevermind. 2:24 PM Jan 29th
-And finally home. Told the cow-orkers I was going to the bathroom. Wasn't very specific about where. 8:53 PM Jan 29th
-Too much fun messing with the computer security people at work. "nope, nope, nope, Oh look, I'm in. Better fix that, eh?" 10:21 PM Jan 29th
-everybody's working for the weekend. 1:46 PM Jan 30th
-oh, a steady diet of junk food and coffee. The cornerstone of a nutritious breakfast. 3:01 PM Jan 30th
-The cow-orkers and I are discussing vending maching potluck. Get us out of here already. 4:11 PM Jan 30th
-Attention, cow-orkers. Management has left the building. Office chair racing in the west hallway in 15 minutes. 6:44 PM Jan 30th
-Hopefully this won't go as badly as office chair jousting did. 6:50 PM Jan 30th
-Why did all the office chair racers come armed with a stapler? We really need to set some rules on these events. 7:07 PM Jan 30th
-A case of carpet burn and a slightly disabled chair later, we have a winner. If we're still here at 10pm, office chair square dancing it is. 7:17 PM Jan 30th
-ugh, back to work... 7:22 PM Jan 30th
-office chair square dancing was a bust due to lack of participants. Screw it, I'm going home. 10:55 PM Jan 30th
-Woo!, another one-day weekend. Trying to make the best of it. Not yet convincing a certain person to join me in fun. 1:52 AM Jan 31st
-data. *short* *short* data. *short*. Look, I suck at this now, I used to be smarter. data. *you're kidding, right?* 2:40 AM Jan 31st
-You, me, next week, remind me, otherwise, I'm out for a bit. Rock on, you crazy nutters. 10:47 PM Jan 31st
-I think I did this last week. Now I'm doing it again. Bet it'll be a lot like next week. 11:35 AM Feb 1st
-you know, I could save a lot of money on rent if I just accepted that I basically live at work. 7:34 PM Feb 1st
-cow-orker said we were acting like a bunch of savages, so we took the conch away from him. 10:23 AM Feb 2nd
-Just got the "nobody leaves until it works" speech. Which wouldn't be so bad if we had the problem isolated. Going to be a long night. 5:10 PM Feb 2nd
-straw poll of cow-orkers indicate 4 tired, 3 stupid, 1 angry. Manchester United 0. 8:02 PM Feb 2nd
-alright, we're all sneaking out the back. enough work for one day. 9:34 PM Feb 2nd
-burning out. 12:48 AM Feb 3rd
-8am and back at work with the ill behavior. Default damager. Power to the people. 8:08 AM Feb 3rd
-oh look, the software is broken again. 11:21 AM Feb 4th
-All one cow-orker has said to me all day is "Mom! Dad! Don't touch it! It's evil!" I think we're getting a little unhinged here. 7:07 PM Feb 4th
-Theory: every bit of company policy is an reaction to a past event. The cow-orkers and I are noticing the lack of sharp objects around here. 7:39 PM Feb 4th
-The software team rejected my idea for a new team motto: "Fire is the cleanser." Bummer. 8:01 PM Feb 4th
-Reason #47 I'm not allowed to name anything at work:They figured out "Software Componenent Architecture By Instrumented Electronic Services" 8:12 PM Feb 4th
-In my cube, hearing the ticking of my watch (not many others around so it's quiet) has a certain sense of morbidity that I'm not liking. 8:49 PM Feb 4th
-I wonder if there's any company policy on aerosol air horns. I know the "Emergency Evacuation Coordinator" locked up their megaphone. 8:51 PM Feb 4th
-Oops. Think I just offended a cow-orker by referring to the Twilight series as "thinly-veiled necrophelia" 9:09 PM Feb 4th
-Hey kids, you know what time it is? It's get the hell out of here and go home time. 10:16 PM Feb 4th
-Finally home. Collapse soon. 10:32 PM Feb 4th
-proofread, dammit. spelling better, grammar still crap. I used to be smarter than this. 11:55 PM Feb 4th
-gah, morning again 8:45 AM Feb 5th
-Today in catharsis while at work: Listening to Retard-O-Bot at very high volume levels. 1:10 PM Feb 5th
-Alright. It's time for a coffee run. My fingers aren't quite shaking fast enough to autotype yet. 1:29 PM Feb 5th
-Soaking wet cow-orker leaving the bathroom (grimly): "Don't go in there." (clearly had gotten caught in the rain, but still, made me laugh. 1:32 PM Feb 5th
-Well, add 3 to the offended cow-orker count. Apparently some people don't think jokes about infant vivisection are terribly humorous. 2:26 PM Feb 5th
-Sitting at my desk eating my yearly candy bar. I call it the Charlie Bucket Diet. 4:27 PM Feb 5th
-Normally I wouldn't recommend the words "bucket" and "diet" in such close proximity, but in this case it's apropos. 4:28 PM Feb 5th
-One cow-orker has vowed to drown her sorrows in Doritos. This will not end well. 4:28 PM Feb 5th
-Dorito Overload Update: Cow-orker is now on bag 3 from the vending machine. We've scheduled an intervention if she passes 5 tonight. 6:45 PM Feb 5th
-Oh, and another offended cow-orker: "Wait, who unchained you from your desk? You had your scheduled bathroom break hours ago." 6:49 PM Feb 5th
-Asked my lead "So how long until they move the sewing machines in here?" They didn't get it. 6:50 PM Feb 5th
-they won't let me go home... 9:33 PM Feb 5th
-I am furiously disgusted that even with all the unpaid overtime, they think the superbowl is a holiday. Fuck it, I'll take back my weekend. 8:17 AM Feb 6th
-back from work...and now to spend the rest of the day cleaning my apartment. 4:00 PM Feb 6th
-interesting evening. soon sleep, then back to work, hellish work. 11:34 PM Feb 7th
-but still, hellish, hellish work tomorrow. Here comes the death march. 12:17 AM Feb 8th
-oh, for the days when I did things other than work all the time. 10:08 AM Feb 8th
-half the cow-orkers are out sick today. curious. 11:35 AM Feb 8th
-nonsense is better than no sense at all. 12:42 PM Feb 8th
-compiling... 2:02 PM Feb 8th
-well, add that to the list of words I shouldn't use at work. Heh. Oops. 3:04 PM Feb 8th
-ugh, mid afternoon crash. time for more caffiene. 4:00 PM Feb 8th
-I'm kind of consoled, but even devils need amusing 5:38 PM Feb 8th
-Staying off the soda. Can't take any more coffee. Should take the chance on possibly expired milk from the oft-ignored milk vending machine? 6:36 PM Feb 8th
-Cow-orker: "So how's things for you?" Me: "I work on ____, how bad could it be?" Cow-orker: "I'm so sorry." 7:09 PM Feb 8th
-Just start screaming "operator". If the voice response system doesn't figure it out, at least you'll have something to pass the time 7:11 PM Feb 8th
-For what it's worth, I spent the last hour of my workday listening to Devo and Kraftwerk to get into the spirit of things. 8:46 PM Feb 8th
-I don't know why I bring my lunch to work. I always just want to escape this place by midday. 11:50 AM Feb 9th
-whoa. cow-orker just had a meltdown and was yelling at people. when engineers attack, film at 11. 2:07 PM Feb 9th
-I checked the pool and we had no winner, so I guess it's now "who'll be the last to have a breakdown." Anyone want to change their bet? 2:08 PM Feb 9th
-Hey, who unchained that guy from his oar? 2:28 PM Feb 9th
-The cow-orkers have informed me that my singing is "distracting" 5:40 PM Feb 9th
-Coming back from dinner, we tried to arrange "Office Worker Bowling." Failed. Nobody wanted to volunteer to be a pin. 6:18 PM Feb 9th
-The conscript pins just ran away. I guess we should've warned them. 6:18 PM Feb 9th
-I know engineers are typically a nerdy bunch, but wow. Big flinchers. 6:19 PM Feb 9th
-I think the guy in the cube next to me fell asleep. 7:17 PM Feb 9th
-oh, uh, oops. We had already assembled the trash-can drill march. 7:31 PM Feb 9th
-If anyone asks, clearly I had no involvement with any flooding of the second floor men's room. I was elsewhere in the building. 8:06 PM Feb 9th
-Not that there was any flooding. I'm just saying that if any happened to occur, I was elsewhere at the time. 8:06 PM Feb 9th
-I need to bring some of my toys back to work. At least the googly eyes. 8:12 PM Feb 9th
-You know, being stuck at work wouldn't be such a hassle if the lighting wouldn't turn off every half hour. *grumble* stupid friggin fraggin' 8:36 PM Feb 9th
-Holy crap, our restroom is breeding Bolsheviks! 8:41 PM Feb 9th
-why are we still here? why can't we go home? 9:22 PM Feb 9th
-ok, forget this noise. I'm going home. 9:51 PM Feb 9th
-cold. going to sleep. 1:47 AM Feb 10th
-afternoon crash came early today. coffee run time. 1:34 PM Feb 10th
-grind. grind. grind. turn the crank. grind. grind. grind. 3:23 PM Feb 10th
-why yes, helpful lab tech, there is a difference between 110V and 220V, but thanks for the demo on arc welding with a desktop power supply 4:51 PM Feb 10th
-We are now on the third day of "Day 1" on the schedule. Argh. 5:48 PM Feb 10th
-Apparently "I swear because I care" is not considered an acceptable justification 6:15 PM Feb 10th
-Day 3,974. No sign of rescue. Plane crashed nearby yesterday with Uraguayan soccer team on board. They were delicious. 6:46 PM Feb 10th
-Management has left to go get our takeout. I shall spend the time going mad as your new tyrant king! Too bad everyone else is in the lab. 7:18 PM Feb 10th
-note: cow-orkers dislike being called "serfs" even more than "cow-orkers" 7:28 PM Feb 10th
-Fetch me my sceptre, knave! I have proclamations to...oh wait, food's here. 7:32 PM Feb 10th
-Oh, the 21st century is here. Forget flying cars, I now have the productivity gain of getting to sit at my desk and work while I eat dinner. 8:09 PM Feb 10th
-It sounds like "Mysterion the Miracle Squirrel" (bane of the facilities employees) has found its way back into the plenum again. 8:54 PM Feb 10th
-I am so sneaking in the words "Horror vacui" the next time I have to write a finding against a peer review. 8:58 PM Feb 10th
-9:35. At work. The urge to break things is certainly enough to make me understand certain company policy (i.e., prohibition) 9:36 PM Feb 10th
-going home. 9:53 PM Feb 10th
-caffeine, save me! 1:33 PM Feb 11th
-Not at work, yay! At the dentist, boo! 5:34 PM Feb 11th
-back at work. double boo! 6:24 PM Feb 11th
-going home. hungry and tired. 10:00 PM Feb 11th
-Hungry 1, Tired 1, Angry 0, Stupid 4, Liverpool 3. 10:02 PM Feb 11th
-I think my caffeine threshold has hit the point where coffee no longer has any effect. 1:53 PM Feb 12th
-Cow-orker: "I just got married this year. No way I'm working Valentine's Day." Me: "You know, I hear the second marriage is easier anyhow." 2:14 PM Feb 12th
-You know, it's kinda hard to type when you're running from a furious cow-orker. 2:14 PM Feb 12th
-just spent a half-hour explaining *nix filesystems to my lead. The nerdery is running deep and wide. 7:22 PM Feb 12th
-No, I'm Batman. 7:46 PM Feb 12th
-Sitting in your office and watching the commentary about the olympics is a bit surreal. 7:46 PM Feb 12th
-to the fast food and other things that will make me feel crappy about working this much! Woo! 8:43 PM Feb 12th
-Finally home. Full weekend half-squandered sleeping through tomorrow, but I suspect good company on Sunday will more than make up for it. 11:52 PM Feb 12th
-I always liked "Buried Alive" as an epitaph. 12:29 AM Feb 14th
-strong sense of deja vu there for a second. odd, been some years. 12:35 AM Feb 15th
-oh, right, that work thing again. Gah. 10:29 AM Feb 15th
-I hate this place. 12:09 PM Feb 15th
-man, it's depressing watching someone cry at their desk. 7:19 PM Feb 15th
-I know if I go out to get food, I won't want to come back. Vending machine dinner it is. 7:36 PM Feb 15th
-Well, add Public Enemy and the Circle Jerks to the list of things the cow-orkers won't let me sing at work anymore. 7:57 PM Feb 15th
-The QA group was just declared to be "a gaggle of spineless dweebs" (it wasn't me.) I predict engineering cage match by the end of the night 8:22 PM Feb 15th
-someone's in the back hallway screaming profanity. Think it's another meltdown. Yikes. 8:43 PM Feb 15th
-feral engineer has calmed down. Is now contemplating the weight-bearing possibilities of the light fixtures. 9:02 PM Feb 15th
-Cow-orker: "Look, the managers aren't around. What's stopping us from casual pyromania?" 9:50 PM Feb 15th
-Cow-orker: "I hate my life. This is the most miserable I've ever been." Me: "Wait until next week." 9:56 PM Feb 15th
-Cow-orker: "This is not living." 11:02 PM Feb 15th
-Ok, I'm done. I'm going home. 11:18 PM Feb 15th
-workers of the world uni...oh, screw it. I'm just not feeling it. Every man for himself. 11:46 AM Feb 16th
-Have decided to irritate the cow-orkers for their ban on singing by saying everything I'm typing. Including this. 3:02 PM Feb 16th
-Ban on singing has been lifted. They made me promise no more Bon Jovi though. 3:11 PM Feb 16th
-Me: "Nobody should be allowed to have this much fun." Cow-orker: "Yeah, I think there's laws against it." 4:26 PM Feb 16th
-take out food deskside again. bleh. 7:21 PM Feb 16th
-Cow-orker: "What build of the software are we testing?" Me: "ALL OF THEM!" Cow-orker: "Man, go home." Me: "UNLIMITED POWER!" 9:18 PM Feb 16th
-The cow-orkers just don't get me. 9:19 PM Feb 16th
-The "Building 10.2 cacophonic all-boys choir" turned out to be just a bit less popular than we planned. 9:41 PM Feb 16th
-Enough. I'm going home. 10:48 PM Feb 16th
-This is the sort of day where I just wish I could just let go of all the negativity. Let it flow freely away so I could be rid of it. 3:18 AM Feb 17th
-Give up. Let go. Release all the rage. 3:18 AM Feb 17th
-ugh, still too much to do. 11:26 AM Feb 17th
-Me: "Is it safe?" Cow-orker: "Is what safe?" Me: "Is it safe?" Cow-orker: "I get it, you work too much." Me: "Is it safe?" 1:04 PM Feb 17th
-Oh, fuck. Code freeze day. Well, "close of business" means "whenever you finally go home". Is it safe? 2:05 PM Feb 17th
-Me: "must. not. break. shit. get it?" Cow-orker: "I just wanted to redo the API." 2:32 PM Feb 17th
-Current software engineering process: If you follow these 75 easy steps, you too can have an unworkable piece of shit. 2:58 PM Feb 17th
-twitchy. tired. cow-orkers grumbling. heading home soon, I think. 9:19 PM Feb 17th
-oh, reinitialization code, how you inspire my disdain. 10:30 PM Feb 17th
-And this is why Gort invented SIGKILL: the Nuclear Option of process control. 10:33 PM Feb 17th
-Just after 10:30. Pushing my last commits into source control. To the build farm! 10:38 PM Feb 17th
-build successful. now to wait for the multi-site sync to fire. 11:14 PM Feb 17th
-Alright, my last changes promoted to the candidate build. Now we wait. And wait. And wait some more. 11:52 PM Feb 17th
-post-midnight engineering. it's the dawning of a new error. 12:05 AM Feb 18th
-Either that guy has a full-blown case of "earbeard" or I'm now officially delusional. Or both. 12:27 AM Feb 18th
-Ok, we're going to meet this milestone (or was it millstone? huh.) by declaring it "Wednesday 2: The return of the revenge." 12:45 AM Feb 18th
-TMI: I am totally taking a shower when I finally get home. I got the stank of some serious engineering on me. 12:56 AM Feb 18th
-ok, wait for it...wait...for...it: We're in code freeze. 3 more days of testing, TRR on Sunday. 5 days of formal testing. 1:00 AM Feb 18th
-became a fan of Get Me The Fuck Out of Here. Oh, wait. wrong social media network. I'm going home. 1:00 AM Feb 18th
-damnit. get home, lamp breaks. 1:47 AM Feb 18th
-Best advice I've heard all evening: "We don't talk about the squids." 3:09 AM Feb 18th
-Didn't we play this game yesterday? Grind. 10:36 AM Feb 18th
-To the lab! There will be wearing of lab coats! We shall...um...you know....labinate 2:06 PM Feb 18th
-I have just been informed that referring to the lab manager as "the labinatrix" might be inappropriate. who knew? 2:07 PM Feb 18th
-Finally home. Eating salad. Listening to Shellac. This is how I unwind: http://bit.ly/htta5 11:01 PM Feb 18th
-the walking dead have returned to work. 10:20 AM Feb 19th
-writing anomaly reports and listening to Renegade Soundwave 6:23 PM Feb 19th
-At my desk, updating documentation, now listening to the Warlock Pinchers, and half-paying-attention to a religious slapfight in the twitter 8:55 PM Feb 19th
-Clearly, there's no way I would be awake at 7:30am. That would just be silly. 7:31 AM Feb 21st
-oh, the heady rush of watching a database load. yawn. 4:23 PM Feb 22nd
-"I live." *data* *data* data*. "I live." *data*....*data*. "I live". (this game is getting silly.) *data*. "I live." 3:13 AM Feb 23rd
-The drones return to the office. 10:18 AM Feb 23rd
-I would just like to point out that this code is..well...bullshit. Fuck fuckity fuck fuck. Argh. 10:39 AM Feb 23rd
-argh. 10:47 AM Feb 23rd
-Today's going to be one of those really fun days. I can feel it 9:42 AM Feb 24th
-destroy puny humans! argh! woo? 10:42 AM Feb 24th
-oh right, lotion in the basket. Glad we got that figured out. 10:44 AM Feb 24th
-Engineering would be a lot more fun if we got to have sidekicks. Expendable sidekicks. 12:23 PM Feb 24th
-duty now for the future, fellow spuds. 12:54 AM Feb 25th
-I descended into Redhat SRPM hell earlier. Is this what my life's become? I think my vision is coming back. Eyes aren't bleeding anymore. 1:21 AM Feb 25th
-The bastards took away my command-line. Feelin' stabby. 2:47 PM Feb 25th
-fnord. 4:18 PM Feb 25th
-poor choices with dinner and sriracha again. Going to sleep soon. 1:08 AM Feb 26th
-"We haven't even begun to scratch the surface of abuse on this," response, "Not with a bang but a whimper." 3:19 AM Feb 26th
-Rule #437 of life: It's not a proper "damn pizza" without tentacles. 4:04 PM Feb 28th
-When all this is over, I plan on leading the zombie apocalypse. Just sayin' 7:51 PM Mar 1st
-Hey look. Brain is waking up. 10:41 AM Mar 2nd
-Seems an engineer walked out last week. Hasn't come back yet. Temptation. 2:03 PM Mar 2nd
-Here we sit like birds in the wilderness...waiting for the SQL. 2:12 PM Mar 2nd
-malaise reigns supreme. 11:03 AM Mar 3rd
-Odd. Manager gave instructions on proper suicide technique. I should've asked for a demonstration. 6:29 PM Mar 3rd
-It's requirements-mapping fun time! Whee! 11:01 AM Mar 4th
-bad news: still at work. good news: just got a raise. 9:09 PM Mar 4th
-Awake. Off for coffee. To the test. Let's get stupid. 11:44 AM Mar 6th
-Wake up. Remember who you were. 1:16 AM Mar 7th
-mornings just keep getting harder to deal with. 9:32 AM Mar 8th
-I hate this place. 8:16 PM Mar 9th
-test run 1 complete. Fuck this, I've been at work long enough. I'm going home. 10:39 PM Mar 9th
-(I'm usually a smart-ass, but I feel compelled to say something borne of sincerity. 3:35 AM Mar 10th
-Be well, good luck. good life, goodbye. 3:38 AM Mar 10th
-So long and thanks for all the fish. 3:41 AM Mar 10th
-oh, here again. bother. 11:43 AM Mar 10th
-Seems after the third round of coffee, my teeth start oscillating. Currently at around 60hz. 3:11 PM Mar 10th
-I spend too much time freaking about the job. That work/life balance needs a reset. 12:13 AM Mar 11th
-signal:noise is sucking tonight. Easily solved. 12:27 AM Mar 12th
-Lazy sunday. Slept in. Doing laundry. Caffienated. Watching "Free for All" (pigface documentary) Set half the clocks to the right time. 2:23 PM Mar 14th
-holy hell, I'm tired. 9:40 AM Mar 15th
-no, I love being called back to work after midnight. IT'S THE BEST. 2:07 AM Mar 17th
-ShortShort/ShortData--DataData/DataShortDataDataData--Data/DataShortShortShort--ShortDataShortDataDataData--DataShortData--Short--DataShort 9:05 PM Mar 17th
-"So what do you use your system for?" "Oh, you know, personal projects, research, absorbing liquids..." 5:44 PM Mar 19th
-coffee? check. goggles? check. formal testing starts in 3...2...1... 9:44 AM Mar 20th
-and more testing....hopefully out of here early today. 10:46 AM Mar 21st
-holy crap, why am I here? 12:23 PM Mar 22nd
-worked out. legs trashed. arms falling off. neck destroyed. tomorrow will be worse. 8:57 PM Mar 23rd
-around on the important nights. thank you. 10:32 PM Mar 23rd
-If all goes to plan, it all ends tomorrow. I hope as much, near collapse. 11:40 PM Mar 24th
-holy crap, it's early. 7:57 AM Mar 25th
-it.is.done. 3:58 PM Mar 25th

Good Times: Had By All

Happy Easter