Tell Uncle Sam to stick a fork in me because I’m done!

*banging head on table*



*lifts head to type*

I need a new job. Like yesterday. In a whole other field. Please and thanks.

So this week is my department’s all department meeting. All. Week.

I come in earlier and leave later every day. *shrug* It is what it is and it only happens once a year plus it is offsite.

This afternoon, I knew it was time to find not just a new job but a new field all together. Seriously. All. Jokes. Completely. Aside.

This ain’t a See What Had Happened Was tale at all.

At the lunch break I did my little internet updates and then headed back to the meeting early to get a good seat. I received an agenda but there was a guest speaker that had been added at the last minute. He was there when I got back in his nice smart looking suit. I had no idea who he was and had I known I would have headed over to the drug store (or pharmacy if you prefer) for liquor. *nods head* Yeah, we have a drug store in downtown Baltimore that sells liquor, mixers and ice. I think it is just for these type occasions.

Anyway. The afternoon meeting starts and our mediator announces that we have a guest speaker and who he is. He is the controller for the entire company.

*folds hands and stares at screen remembering*

The company within which my little department operates has a multi-BILLION (yes, baby, billion with a B) annual operating budget. We only have one controller though he does have many minions beneath him.

So when The One And Only Controller of a company with a multi-billion dollar operating budget shows up in person, you know whatever they are about to say is going to be bad.

And it was. And I need a new job. Not because we got laid off or anything but because there is just too much work and not enough people to do it all. And I’m told there is no money to hire any more.

I’ll try to keep this brief. Currently, I handle the issuing of subcontracts, monitoring of subcontract expenditures, paying the subcontractors, and close out of subcontracts for our department. The majority of our subcontractors are in various countries around the world. We get the majority of our department’s operating budget to fund these subcontracts from the Federal Government or Feds as we call them. There are BOOKS of regulations that I am expected to know and follow regarding the issuance and managing of subcontracts / sub-agreements funded with Federal Government money. It is a daunting task but as my annual evaluations for the past 10 plus years show, I handle it well.

The Feds just handed down some new regulations and extensive paperwork that is now a requirement for all of our own work as well as what we are subcontracting out. *bangs head on table a little more*

I had just gotten this job down to the point where I didn’t have to go in on Saturdays for a few hours anymore. I’m a multi-tasking fool but there are some duties, like complex analyses, that I need to concentrate on in order to complete. I can usually come in and update those spreadsheets and double check my formulas and be out in a few hours.

I had just gotten this job somewhat under control. Some. What. It is never under control because…*sighs* just because for now. That is another long azz post.

Anyway, as the slides roll and the controller talked you could FEEL the tension in the room. By question and answer time there was a sea of hands in the air and I was looking for an escape route in my head. It took everything in me not to bolt for the door and the nearest computer to start my job search.

One of the managers’ voices was filled with barely controlled emotion as he asked his questions about the time and cost to the subcontractors (or subs) to do all this extra financial compliance work.

Yes, the subs are required to do their own paperwork but *pause* guess… who… has… to… check… their… paperwork? Along with everything else I have to do. There were supposed to be two people doing my job when I was hired. There were two jobs posted. Guess who is doing it all by herself?

Guess who just decided that the Feds win and I’m out on the next thing smoking? I don’t care if it is in another state, country, or on another planet. It definitely needs to be in a new field. Heaven help me, I’m even willing to take a pay cut if I have to. My sanity is entirely too precious.

You see, not only were there financial record keeping changes, but there were international HR changes, and changes from our signing authority. Now, one or two of the changes have been in effect for about a year now. Our field staff always has excuses about why they forget to do them.

Well, they had a coup de grâce for us. See, the Controller’s Office, HR, and our signing authority all got together and issued this edict: Do all the new paperwork or your subs will not get paid.

The gates of Hell buckled. Seriously, the tension in the room went up about 10-20 notches.

When the meeting was over I took off out the door. I can feel the questions, emails and meetings coming. *rubs forehead* I’m whipped just thinking about it.

Tonight is a special dinner. Open bar. I was supposed to attend. I’m home eating leftovers. I got my own open bar. And I’m going to go enjoy it now… well…perhaps I’ll wait until AFTER I update my job search agents.

Way back when

Today is Sunday. The day for my chores. I usually do them in quiet which gives me time to think. I can work out my problems or plan for the week or just let my mind wander. Today my mind wandered back to 1993, when the internet was fun for me.

It is this whole fb blocking thing that made me start thinking about the good ole days of the internet. *chuckling* For me, surfing the net started in the summer of 1993. It was so simple for me then. And it was fun.

AOL was the IP then and they had chat rooms that you could breeze in and out of cool as you please. Everyone I met was fun and just looking for fun on the net. There were no pics just generic guy and girl shapes. The word avatar was unknown. The chat rooms had names that pretty much told you what the topics were. There was role playing, gossip, game talk, entertainment, politics and music and so much more. And everyone just seemed to be out to have fun in the nameless faceless ether that was the net. There was no exchanging of pics or tracer programs or internet stalking or cyber bullying, etc.

What the heck happened?

How did we take something so simple and fun and make it into the mess it is today?

My internet persona is just me…free. Free of responsibilities, prejudices, worries, and woes. Pure unadulterated me. Who I would be if life didn’t get in the way everyday that ends in Y.

But I wonder now, what will become of that part of me. I did some wandering around the net last night after I posted just trying to gage what is out there. Who I want to be next? Dang it, I liked my screen name! *pout*

I don’t want to reinvent myself but this net and these generations of people who are there now and coming *pause and face scrunch* they aren’t like me. They aren’t like the people I first met in 1993.

In 1993, I could pop into a role play room, usually something magical *chuckle*, and laugh and joke and play the role I had come up with and breeze back out. We all knew it was just for laughs and kicks. Most of the time anyway. Every now and again some guy would want to know me offline and I’d politely decline and he’d accept it and that was that. It was all so polite and civil. Neither I nor anyone else had to do or be anything other than what we wanted to be. *sigh* What happened?

*choking laugh* I remember once I signed onto AOL and found a new chat room called TV Men. I naively thought that TV stood for television *lol*. Boy was I wrong! Of course it stood for transvestite as one of the guys very nicely told me. I apologized for interrupting and left the room. *lol* No harm. No foul. I moved on to another room and laughed at my own naïveté.

No one called me names or put me on blast for being naïve or told me to drink bleach etc. Now, people are so touchy. I’d probably be followed to another room and called a bigot for not wanting to stay and talk to the TV Men. But really, talk about what? I’ve never been a man and *shrug* I don’t know that I’d have anything to contribute to their discussion so the thing to do would be to move on to another room.

*sigh* It is all becoming so complicated. You’ve got the language Nazis. *chuckle* I mean really folks, they’re, there, and their are all pronounced the exact same way and just about everyone who speaks and writes English gets them mixed up from time to time. But you would think that by doing so you will bring about the apocalypse the way some people carry on when you misuse them or any of the other words like them. Affect and effect. Bare and bear, fair and fare, its and it’s and so many more.

Then there are the spelling Nazis and the grammar Nazis, etc. It just goes on and on.

All I want to do is play and have fun. I thought I’d be able to do that on the internet forever. *sigh* But I’m getting the feeling that I won’t be. I keep running into uptight people. They are as tight on the internet as I am in real life. I have to be in real life but the virtual world is supposed to be my escape.

So where do I play, now? Where can I have fun? Where can I escape to?

Oh well…I’ll continue thinking next Sunday, I guess. My real life beckons me back.

Facebook is a debil. Yes debil.

I have been blocked on FB. *chuckle* Yes, I’m chuckling now but at first my little feelings were hurt. Then I thought about the last conversation I had with the person who blocked me and realized that I just might have been blocked because I like Nickelback. *blink blink* You know the Hurt Feelings Fairy sucked her teeth at me, rolled her eyes and gathered up her children. Dragged her out over something so silly. *chuckle* Oh well. He did what he needed to do, I guess. If today was his last day the last thing he should be looking at are my offending posts.

I don’t know about folks. I get on the internet to meet new folk and share some laughs and giggles. Perhaps a serious exchange every now and again. *sighs*

I got so much serious stuff going on in my life right now. I really just want to relax and have fun online. But more and more I’m finding myself censoring myself. For a while there, I got to feeling a little persecuted because some women folk got to thinking I was interested in the avatars that are their men. *smh* I’m having enough problems with men in real life. I don’t have time to even begin to research some picture of a man I met online.

Of late there is a situation that I hinted at in my last post. I wrote up the blog but the situation has taken on new twists and turns. I had to call TPL to get his handle on it because it has gotten completely out of hand. I keep trying to put distance between me and the people involved and one of them keeps trying to pull me back in. Father, help!!!!

So, when I get online, I just want to sit back and have some fun. *sighs* Maybe it is time for a new screen name and a new internet community. I mean, I love BA and I ain’t leaving them behind. But OHN is another story. Everyone seems…I don’t know…uptight? More and more of them are pairing off and the women folk are starting to scare me a bit. I spend a lot of time making sure that I don’t talk to this guy or that guy or trying to remember who is paired with whom. This is beginning to be more work than fun and I’m not getting paid for it. *amused sigh*

Oh well…the search for a new community begins again…