Work

Stop The Madness

Subject: Christmas/Holiday Gift Giving At Work
To: Workgroup
Cc: Department Boss

Folks,

Every year I have been going around and asking (begging/cajoling) for some amount of money to pool together to buy the boss one big gift card. The decision of what store that card should be from is haggled over until a consensus is reached. I then go get the gift card from said place, stuff it in a Christmas card that we present to the boss at our annual holiday lunch at a local restaurant. At that same meal, the boss usually turns right around and hands out an individual gift card to each and every one of us, for about the same value as our individual donation to his card, in appreciation for our “hard” work during the year.

Well, this year I propose we stop the madness. Let’s avoid the whole senseless swapping ‘X’ amount for the same ‘X’ amount already. A free lunch on the company, a hardy handshake and a “thanks for everything” is all that any of us really want during this holiday season. I think it would be better for each of us to take that gift card money and drop it in the red kettle outside a grocery store or donate it to a charity that you feel is doing good work (or buy yourself Independence Day: Resurgence on BluRay.)

If someone else wants to take up the mantle of gathering money to pass along something up the food chain, please leave me out of it. I’m not a total Grinch, so if anyone, group or individual, wants to give another individual in the department a gift, by all means go for it. And after this, if someone still somehow feels the need to give me a gift, I will thank them profusely and promptly go out and buy a share in a goat in Zanzibar of equal value in their name.

Brian

P.S. Immediate Boss, please, don’t take this personally just because this is your first year as the boss and this is the year I’d like to opt out of the gift card swaperoo thing, it’s been festering for a few years now.

What’s The Password Kenneth?*

g78FY7PMQ0tkT5w
AnVknz6LOHXdNMn
Qn5FlG16gX1WS0D
U5Ct1SVNN5K3EAQ
jHYkj8H7MjpGvK1

The PCs around Valve Store(tm), like most in a networked business environment, are locked down pretty good so that the regular Joe users can’t screw ’em up. That’s where an administrator password comes in, and I wield one.

One of my various functions at the the plant is Back-up IT Guy and because the Regular IT Guy is pretty ill, I’ve been doing a lot of more computer type stuff recently. While most of the real issues are handled remotely by the Help Desk techs at the Home Office in beautiful downtown Florham Park, NJ., sometimes it is just easier to just call Brian.

It used to be easy, I could keep my admin password the same as my regular network password, so it was always right at my fingertips. But about a month ago the corporation that pulls ASCO’s marionette strings decreed that all Administrators must use the RSA Token two-step authentication system. Now every morning I have to login to special Password Repository using a combination of my 4 digit PIN and 6 randomly generated digits, that change every 60 seconds, from my software token. This allows me to get a unique 15 character alpha-numeric admin password, good for 12 hours.

What you see above are my passwords from the past week. Feel free to copy them down for your own personal use on your favorite, or not so favorite, internet sites.

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 06/25/15: 38

*My twist on the used to be famous phrase, “What’s the frequency, Kenneth?”

Got Any Questions

Every month the Director of Operations has a Communications Meeting with each of the two “classes” of employees, Hourly & Salary, to field questions, concerns or suggestions. Each month there is some sort of randomized drawing to select 8 or 10 employees to act as representatives, who then solicit and/or receive questions for asking. This representative affords a slight sense of anonymity to the questioner, in cases of calling out perceived bone-headed decisions by the management team or whining about fellow employees.

This month is my turn as representative. I have gathered a few questions and with the meeting coming up tomorrow I sent out an email to my group this afternoon to remind them if they had anything, please get it to me.

From: Brian
To: Fab Eng Grp
Subj: Only 24 Hours Left to…

…get your questions to me for the Salaried Communications Meeting tomorrow. Got a question that only the Big Kahuna can answer, get it to me.

For total anonymity, snip out the letters to form the words from the ads in today’s paper, then glue them to a pristine piece of copy paper (using latex gloves of course) and place it in my mailbox up front. Or you could always just send me an email from a co-workers desk when they aren’t in their cubicle and have left without locking their screen. An easier option would be to print it in notepad, fold in half and drop it on my desk when no one is looking.

Best option would be to walk up to me and tell me what it is. Don’t worry your personal information is safe with me, unlike all those poor cheating souls who used AshleyMadison.com.

The Back Porch Is Open For Business

The Back Porch Is Open

Finally got around to washing off the screened porch last night. It goes like this: 1) remove all the knick-knacks from horizontal wood pieces, 2) cart out the 13 pieces of furniture and place them on the deck, 3) vacuum off the area rugs, 4) roll up rugs and carry them out onto the deck. Fifth is to drag a hundred foot of hose from the spigot on the left side of the house all the way around through the door on the right side of the porch, 6) spray through all the sections of screen and 7) thoroughly spray down the floor from the back left corner to the door on the right washing all the pine pollen and moth carcases out onto the deck and 8) turn the two ceiling fans on high and go inside to eat dinner.

After eating, go back outside to 9) bring back in and unroll the 2 area rugs. Next 10) individually spray and wipe off the baker’s dozen pieces of furniture, 11) shake off the excess water and place them back where they belong on the porch and then 11) repeat with the similar amount of fru-fru decorations.

Today I took all the cushions that I removed last fall back out and velcro’d and or tied on the furniture.

As a reward for reading all the way through that boring recitation, High Diving Giraffes:

httpvh://vimeo.com/76684408