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Friday, April 09, 2010

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

5 comments:

Boo said...

I remember the desk chair square dancing but had forgotten about them coming armed with staplers to the racing.

Hey, you maintained your sense of humor and that means...you did not work hard enough!

I am joking.

Grace said...

Holy crap. I witnessed a few of these tweets in real time but didn't realize the horrific iceberg of it all. That's quite a record, and I am in awe of your apparent resiliency.

Unknown said...

Find another job dude!
You're only allowed to work that hard if you own the freakin' business. And I don't mean stock options in a start-up.

I believe you have my stapler.

Unknown said...

"Mmm, yeah, This is Bill... Bill Lumbergh. M'Kay?"

"Mmm, yeah, I'm going to have to go ahead and ask you to come in on Sunday, M'Kay?"

"Mmm, yeah, If you could just go ahead and put the new cover sheet on his those TPS reports, that'd be great, M'Kay?"

Anonymous said...

SCABIES! Man, that's funny! So, you over work too...if you were thinking of another job, would you consider staying at the current company if they paid you more, and if so, how much more would it take you to stay? Providing, of course, you were actually thinking about leaving. I love my job but I'm salaried, so after a 12 hour day, I figure I'm killing myself for 8 an hour...bex