The Syndicate

thellama73 wrote:I really hate fascists. But not as much as communists.

Ricochet wrote:So let's say one of your 1st grade pupils has a mother. Well, don't almost all of them usually do, anyway...?

Say that mother was excited about your recitals this week and attended them. Say she even took a few steps to promote your recitals a bit on social media.

Say that, a day after these events, you write her a thank you message, both for attending and for those small gestures of promoting. And then she writes you back on how you promoted your recital all wrong (read: in a basically non-existent way) and offering her services for the future, since she has a masters in Publicity and has worked at local newspapers and TV channels.

Say you tell her about the next recital you'll have with an ensemble (more because some of it will hinder the piano lessons at school with her kid) and she becomes determined to get it promoted grand scale, even though it's a contemporary classical programme with both beautiful but also nasty pieces that will likely intrigue or alienate, depending on the audience (but percentage-wise, probably more towards the latter). But no, to her sheer promotion trumps every other factor.

Say you then spend an entire evening of conversations on Messenger with her, in which she hits you with every idea and strategy conceivable: emails to be sent to TV hosts, posters, FB pages for both you and your ensemble, photoshoots of you and/or the ensemble, DVD recordings of you to send for the interviews, ideas on how to profile you on social media or TV, ways to start sharing the event already, profiling every ensemble member in individual FB statuses, write daily updates on the event page...

Say you send her an email with the details and presentation of the event, but ask her to hold on until tomorrow, in order to double-check some things, only for her to reply, minutes later, that she sent it to three different TV hosts.

Say you make it clear that you don't want the interviews to be only with you and about you, since this is a team/ensemble effort, but she keeps phrasing it in her replies about you getting interviewed and the producers having material with you to use, in ways that it's not entirely sure whether she got the message or not.

Say she'd like everyone solved by tomorrow morning already, when you can barely offer incomplete details and the rest of your ensemble is nowhere to be contacted, in real time. I mean, it's only bloody Maundy Thursday, a day before legal holidays, right?

Say much of this is well intentioned and potentially highly welcomed support, considering you can barely wake up on your own in the morning and cook an omelette, let alone do something as mediatize your career events ( ), but that this kind of dialogue and pressure can really get to you nonetheless.

Kid A's mom sounds like she is well meaning but way too much of a handful.

I am tremendously frustrated.

DharmaHelper wrote:I am tremendously frustrated.

why

I am laid up at the hospital awaiting an unexpected surgery. I am in a great deal of pain. I don't know how that will affect my activity here- just letting my Syndicate family know.

Aw, prayers & good vibes, Epi~ feel better

S~V~S wrote:Aw, prayers & good vibes, Epi~ feel better

Well, that was damn fast! Even though two doctors believed I would have to have surgery, the latest test results came back and surgery will not be necessary. Medication and pain management are all I require.

I still hurt like a sonofabitch, but yay!

Oh that's great!

No surgery is always good, but pain still sucks. Feel better

Thanks S~V~S. I am home now.

Seven hours at the hospital today...maybe I should have written my message in here this morning and gone home by noon.

Feel better soon Rob! No surgery is way better than surgery, at least.

Take care Rob. I'm glad to hear you'll go home without much work done on you.

Excellent vacation.

We have to check out tomorrow.

The car won't start.

Got my laptop back from service today...

Does it have a new hard drive? Yes.
Is it now 1TB instead of 500GB? Yes.
Are all my files backed up? (I backed up the documents myself, anyway) Yes.
Do I have a new functional adapter? Yes.
Did the techs fix my keyboard (one of the keys fell)? No.
Did they postpone fixing this until today, only to realize that they have to order a new keyboard altogether? Yes.
Do I have to wait another 3 to 5 working days for that new keyboard to arrive and be installed? Yes
Did the techs remember to reinstall Win10 on the new hard drive? No. They reverted back to Win8.1, because that's what the original details were saying.

I'd rate this experience an average of /5.

Tfw one of my pupils caught chicken pox and I have no idea if I'm doomed or not. I last had class with him on Monday, without him showing symptoms.

I haven't been to the lectures for one of my courses since the beginning of the semester and now that I have a report due I'm instantly regretting it

Quin wrote:I haven't been to the lectures for one of my courses since the beginning of the semester and now that I have a report due I'm instantly regretting it

Should I lecture you for not going to lecture?

Probably not, I'm skipping class next week for a camping trip.

I hate you Chris Sale.

Quin wrote:I haven't been to the lectures for one of my courses since the beginning of the semester and now that I have a report due I'm instantly regretting it

Tell 'em you have chicken pox.

So here's the saga of everything going wrong with this past weekend's birthday party for the kids:

On Saturday the 15th, my wife was at a women's retreat with church. I took the kids to Party City to look at decorations because Chloe wanted a Tinker Bell party. I also looked at the 1st birthday decorations for Lilah's side of the shindig. I snapped pictures of a few decorations so I could show to and discuss with my wife before making any purchases. We settle on a which Tinker Bell items to get and carry on with life.

On Friday the 21st, both my wife and I are running late at work, so we get home and eat later than we wanted. Lots of prep work for the next day, so I go back to Party City to buy the Tinker Bell and 1st Birthday stuff. I grab the 1st Birthday stuff and head over to the theme aisle. I feel like I'm walking further back the aisle than I ought to, having left Disney stuff far behind.

A clerk asks me what I'm looking for, so I tell him Tinker Bell. He says, "Oh, that pattern was discontinued this week."



Fine, I think. I'll run over to Target and get Tinker Bell stuff there. They always have Tink in the party supply aisle. I get there and there is no more Tinker Bell stuff.



Onward to Toys R Us, where they always, always, always have Tinker Bell stuff because Disney tells them to keep that crap on their shelves. At least, they used to.



Walmart! Walmart will have it! They're big and have a whole party section. Kids still love Tinker Bell, right? Right? RIGHT?!? Wrong.



I get home at 10:00 pm with just a Mylar Tinker Bell balloon for Chloe's side of the party. Now I have to go shopping for the groceries so we can spend the next morning cleaning up the house. After 10:00 pm, our grocery store shuts down all the manned checkouts, so I had to run a cart full of groceries through the cramped self-checkout. My spacial intelligence scored big but it was a moral victory only.

Home at 10:45 pm and I start cleaning. I clean and clean until 1:30 am. The next morning, my wife shuts her alarm off before I'm fully awake, so we sleep in way too late. We bake, we clean, we tend to the kids. When guests start to arrive, they end up helping us set up the party.

That sounds about right.

Epi, what do you mean, "sounds about right." You sat there, sipped your tea, and cackled with blooper while I did all the prep for Abigail's party last year . Hush yo' mouth :P

@G-man....let me help you out sir. Start planning parties at least a month in advance. The only thing you ought to leave until the day before are balloons. I usually start planning 2 months in advance and buy party activity stuff/decorations/etc at least two weeks prior to the party date. And most of the time, I forgo balloons only b/c anything that has to be done outside the home on weekend of the party is too stressful. I even clean and decorate the evening before the party. That way, the only thing that is done on party day is food prep. You're welcome hehe AND....kudos to you for being such a helpful husband.

Yeah, I'm not letting Chloe change her party theme three weeks out again next year. It's going to be a Star Wars party, so I can plan well in advance. Here's my week so far as a follow-up:

The water jug at the office is acting up and there are pieces of something floating in the water. Chloe didn't take a nap yesterday and was a grouch off-and-on the rest of the night before bed. Lilah peed on the bathroom rug before bath. Lilah wakes up screaming at 3:00 a.m. for a diaper change and a teething ring. Chloe wakes up at 4:00 a.m. and tells me she peed the bed. I can't find my big cup to take my own water to the office today, so I'll have to drink soda to hydrate (tap water at the office isn't safe) and I have all but cut soda out of my diet. And my shirt got caught on my office door handle, tearing it 4-5" straight up the back.

All first world problems, but all in a row? Sheesh.

So, speaking of daddy issues (not really, although somewhat, somehow really ).

I had two concerts scheduled with the contemporary music ensemble I'm part of, this Thursday in town and on the 22nd at a Festival somewhere else. It was nicely conceived, with a big work and something on the side that was thematically linked (Messiaen and homages written to him). Well, everything fell apart this Monday, when the cellist (one of the older, veteran, esteemable musicians in my hometown) called it quits on account of tensions due to not being able to match our rehearsals with the ensemble clarinetist, who was very much restricted by the time he had to spend taking care (alone or in the family) of his infant daughter. So now, with replacements out of the question (since either another cellist or another clarinetist are nott available or the material is too demanding to just start over in the three weeks left), the only solution was for the violinist and I to scramble another programme and save face in both shows.

Utterly depressed by this whole situation and by how little there was to be done to mediate it, outside the cellist-clarinetist inner conflict. There isn't anyone to fully fault, even, although the moodswings from the cellist (regarding the repertoire, the rehearsal hiccups and how inflexible managing them turned out) were particularly terrible. We had collaborated on the same Messiaen project in the past (but together with a different clarinetist), but I guess approaching her twice and with new stuff in the mix was too difficult.

G-Man wrote:Yeah, I'm not letting Chloe change her party theme three weeks out again next year. It's going to be a Star Wars party, so I can plan well in advance. Here's my week so far as a follow-up:

The water jug at the office is acting up and there are pieces of something floating in the water. Chloe didn't take a nap yesterday and was a grouch off-and-on the rest of the night before bed. Lilah peed on the bathroom rug before bath. Lilah wakes up screaming at 3:00 a.m. for a diaper change and a teething ring. Chloe wakes up at 4:00 a.m. and tells me she peed the bed. I can't find my big cup to take my own water to the office today, so I'll have to drink soda to hydrate (tap water at the office isn't safe) and I have all but cut soda out of my diet. And my shirt got caught on my office door handle, tearing it 4-5" straight up the back.

All first world problems, but all in a row? Sheesh.

goodness! I hope your week gets better.

My kids plan their parties years in advance. Abigail knows what theme she wants for each birthday through the age of 10. Ephraim has his planned too. Simon is the only one who often changes his mind. But once the plans begin, no take backs We will be having a pajama spa day birthday party in a couple weeks. I'm looking forward to this one.

I'm getting one of my wisdom teeth out tomorrow. Originally I was supposed to get both of my bottom teeth out way back when I got the first one out, but I had some issues getting scans done so the dentist postponed getting one of them. So now I get to go through recovery a second time

I got a super-sized dose of 'be careful what you wish for' today. Our office manager came in and informed me that our administrative assistant handed in her two weeks notice about an hour earlier. This is an individual who has been caught reading and shopping at work when there are more pressing tasks at hand. Now, I recognize that I am a hypocrite because I play mafia at work but I still get my work done on the day it needs to be done. Our administrative assistant would let invoices that needed to be sent sit on her desk for days before putting them in the mail. Her job duties shifted in a big way this past January when neither the office manager nor myself could supervise her due to our own accounting and bid work duties being off the charts. As a result, she let her work fill the time instead of asking for additional tasks. Sometimes it was like pulling teeth to get her to take on a new task.

Overall, this is actually a good thing, because the duties among the office staff have really shifted over the last four years. They've settled for the most part but could use some tweaking. Our office manager and myself can now train a new person to do the work the way we'd like it to be done and provide the new person with a more structured work week (the outgoing AA all but refused to break down her weekly tasks in an organized way- she never got used to not doing tasks in fits and spurts like her previous and much more variable schedule). Our office manager and I can work to make the office staff function as a true team now that we have a vision of what we'd like it to be and a new person that will be receptive to that vision.

The terrible, horrible, no good, very bad part of all this is that our current administrative assistant is leaving smack in the middle of my busiest time of the year. I run the books. Right now I'm on a mission to reduce our net income as much as possible so our owners don't show as underpaying their quarterly estimates when taxes are filed. Come January 1, I'll be elbows deep in closing out our calendar and fiscal year. I won't have time to interview and train a new person but I'm going to have to. This means overtime, extra work, extra stress, and less sleep until it is all said and done.

Be careful what you wish for because you just might get it at the worst possible time.

I've been applying for all sorts of jobs since leaving uni (none getting back to me, of course), and I applied for one that sounded absolutely fantastic - the gist was that I'd be acting as a customer service and sales rep for a marketing firm that interacted with all sorts of national and international businesses. They work strictly for charity organisations so I was a lot more interested in the position than I would be if it were just your typical sales job.

They called me and we had a telephone interview where they told me about the job and the expectations and it all sounded great, and I had an appointment scheduled for this morning.

I went in and their entire definition of what the job actually entailed changed. They were really offering a job not for someone to communicate with these charity organisations like what they'd described, but for someone to go cold-door knocking door to door to ask for donations - I'd have zero contact with these charities like I thought I would or like they described. On the phone I specifically asked them whether the job entailed any cold contact of any kind and they said no then, so now all my interest in the job has been crushed and I had to withdraw my application.

Now I'm back to square one.

Quin, that first job after uni is always the hardest. Don't worry, something will come along that suits your talents and your interests. Glad you didn't take a position that would have made you miserable.

Also at least you found out in the interview process. My brothers friend applied for, and interviewed for, what sounded like a dream job, and he did not find out until AFTER he was hired that it was not at all what he expected. But rather than taking and quitting a job in rapid succession blotting his resume, he is going to stick it out for a few years. He hates it, but he is sort of stuck for now.

S~V~S wrote:Also at least you found out in the interview process. My brothers friend applied for, and interviewed for, what sounded like a dream job, and he did not find out until AFTER he was hired that it was not at all what he expected. But rather than taking and quitting a job in rapid succession blotting his resume, he is going to stick it out for a few years. He hates it, but he is sort of stuck for now.

That sucks. Do you mind if I ask what the job is? I'm in contact with someone who's looking for someone to do their business's social media marketing which is more or less exactly what I want, so maybe I have some better luck this time.

Quin wrote:

S~V~S wrote:Also at least you found out in the interview process. My brothers friend applied for, and interviewed for, what sounded like a dream job, and he did not find out until AFTER he was hired that it was not at all what he expected. But rather than taking and quitting a job in rapid succession blotting his resume, he is going to stick it out for a few years. He hates it, but he is sort of stuck for now.

That sucks. Do you mind if I ask what the job is? I'm in contact with someone who's looking for someone to do their business's social media marketing which is more or less exactly what I want, so maybe I have some better luck this time.

It was a marketing analyst job. He *thought* he would be doing account and sales trend analysis, but it turns out he is basically doing key accounts customer service. He did not want to have to directly deal with customers and accounts, but that is an intrinsic part of his job. He makes more than he did at his last job but he basically does the same thing, and he was looking for growth more than money.

I don't believe in superstitions but if Friday the 13th really is bad luck, then it must have struck me early this time around.

Since it's the new year, I need 2017 payroll formulas to run payroll this week. To obtain 2017 payroll formulas I have to install an software update on my office computer. Before I can install a software update on my office computer I have to download and install and update on our server computer.

Last Friday I attempted to install the update on our server computer but got caught in an endless cycle of being prompted to restart the server. I called the software company's tech support around 5:00 pm and was told that they couldn't stay on the line long because they were in Georgia and were being sent home early due to the winter storm heading for them. The guy said all I had to do was uninstall the software and install it again.

Not being an IT savvy fellow, uninstalling the most important piece of software for my job without any technical support sounded like a bad idea, so I waited until today. Unfortunately that meant my office manager wasn't going to be able to do anything in the software until I was done updating the server and all our work stations. I was trying to avoid this by doing it last Friday but it seems no good deed goes unpunished.

I call tech support at 9:02 am (they open at 9:00) and I'm told that 'due to high call volumes, no one is available to take your call.' Awesome. I have a bank report deadline on Tuesday and a payroll deadline on Wednesday. Fortunately, I was able to leave a message. Three minutes later I get a call from a tech support guy based out of Oregon. In under 30 minutes he resolves the issue with the server and we end the call. I've updated our work stations through the server several times before with no hang ups. Until now.

My work station rejected the update because I was missing a data file. At 9:35, I call back in to tech support and leave another request for callback. An hour later, a woman from Georgia calls me back. She tries repairing the software on my computer and the server but can't make progress. She tells me that she needs to transfer me to tier 2 support. Upon being transferred, I am greeted by the auto-response 'due to high call volumes, no one is available to take your call.' Instead of having me leave another message for callback, it hangs up on me. It's now 11:20 am.

I call back the number that called me and get the tech center operator. She asks for the name or extension of the person I need to reach but all I have is a case number. She puts me into the tier 2 support line where I sit on hold for the next 90 minutes.

Around 12:50 pm I give in and start eating lunch. Three bites later, tier 2 tech support picks up. We spend the next hour bouncing between the three office computers that use the accounting software and the server. We install updates and double check to make sure everything works right. Finally, the process is finished.

At 2:00 pm I go back to eating lunch and curse my luck. The last two weeks were four-day weeks due to the holidays and crunching five days of work into four was mentally draining. Thanks to my train wreck of a day, I now had just over four days once again to get all my week's work completed.

The only silver lining to all this is that we made an offer to someone for our administrative assistant position and she accepted. She could start later this week if her current employer doesn't want her around to fulfill her two weeks notice.

Sounds like your tech support need to find new careers. This sounds like a very simple issue to me.

Epignosis wrote:It's that time of year again for me...

"Mr. Brown...what can I do to bring up my grade?"

"BUILD A TIME MACHINE AND GO BACK TO THE DAY YOU WERE FUCKING AROUND."

I would just like to say that I have not related to anything more in my life.


"Mr. Torro, how can I get a B?"


"Go back and not fail every test and quiz you have taken in this class"

G-Man wrote:I don't believe in superstitions but if Friday the 13th really is bad luck, then it must have struck me early this time around.

Since it's the new year, I need 2017 payroll formulas to run payroll this week. To obtain 2017 payroll formulas I have to install an software update on my office computer. Before I can install a software update on my office computer I have to download and install and update on our server computer.

Last Friday I attempted to install the update on our server computer but got caught in an endless cycle of being prompted to restart the server. I called the software company's tech support around 5:00 pm and was told that they couldn't stay on the line long because they were in Georgia and were being sent home early due to the winter storm heading for them. The guy said all I had to do was uninstall the software and install it again.

Not being an IT savvy fellow, uninstalling the most important piece of software for my job without any technical support sounded like a bad idea, so I waited until today. Unfortunately that meant my office manager wasn't going to be able to do anything in the software until I was done updating the server and all our work stations. I was trying to avoid this by doing it last Friday but it seems no good deed goes unpunished.

I call tech support at 9:02 am (they open at 9:00) and I'm told that 'due to high call volumes, no one is available to take your call.' Awesome. I have a bank report deadline on Tuesday and a payroll deadline on Wednesday. Fortunately, I was able to leave a message. Three minutes later I get a call from a tech support guy based out of Oregon. In under 30 minutes he resolves the issue with the server and we end the call. I've updated our work stations through the server several times before with no hang ups. Until now.

My work station rejected the update because I was missing a data file. At 9:35, I call back in to tech support and leave another request for callback. An hour later, a woman from Georgia calls me back. She tries repairing the software on my computer and the server but can't make progress. She tells me that she needs to transfer me to tier 2 support. Upon being transferred, I am greeted by the auto-response 'due to high call volumes, no one is available to take your call.' Instead of having me leave another message for callback, it hangs up on me. It's now 11:20 am.

I call back the number that called me and get the tech center operator. She asks for the name or extension of the person I need to reach but all I have is a case number. She puts me into the tier 2 support line where I sit on hold for the next 90 minutes.

Around 12:50 pm I give in and start eating lunch. Three bites later, tier 2 tech support picks up. We spend the next hour bouncing between the three office computers that use the accounting software and the server. We install updates and double check to make sure everything works right. Finally, the process is finished.

At 2:00 pm I go back to eating lunch and curse my luck. The last two weeks were four-day weeks due to the holidays and crunching five days of work into four was mentally draining. Thanks to my train wreck of a day, I now had just over four days once again to get all my week's work completed.

The only silver lining to all this is that we made an offer to someone for our administrative assistant position and she accepted. She could start later this week if her current employer doesn't want her around to fulfill her two weeks notice.

Dom wrote:

Epignosis wrote:It's that time of year again for me...

"Mr. Brown...what can I do to bring up my grade?"

"BUILD A TIME MACHINE AND GO BACK TO THE DAY YOU WERE FUCKING AROUND."

I would just like to say that I have not related to anything more in my life.


"Mr. Torro, how can I get a B?"


"Go back and not fail every test and quiz you have taken in this class"

Mr. Brown, Mr. Torro, could I retake the test after school/during lunch?

Dom wrote:

Epignosis wrote:It's that time of year again for me...

"Mr. Brown...what can I do to bring up my grade?"

"BUILD A TIME MACHINE AND GO BACK TO THE DAY YOU WERE FUCKING AROUND."

I would just like to say that I have not related to anything more in my life.


"Mr. Torro, how can I get a B?"


"Go back and not fail every test and quiz you have taken in this class"

Dom wrote:

Epignosis wrote:It's that time of year again for me...

"Mr. Brown...what can I do to bring up my grade?"

"BUILD A TIME MACHINE AND GO BACK TO THE DAY YOU WERE FUCKING AROUND."

I would just like to say that I have not related to anything more in my life.


"Mr. Torro, how can I get a B?"


"Go back and not fail every test and quiz you have taken in this class"

LOL, I can relate to this one too, which is even sadder since you'd think they would have learned from high school.

Some days just don't work out right for no discernible reason. You end up feeling lonely when everyone is around, sad when you are having fun, hurt when no one has done anything to you that is hurtful. And then they pass again, and the next day is fine.

Today is one of those days.

Golden wrote:Some days just don't work out right for no discernible reason. You end up feeling lonely when everyone is around, sad when you are having fun, hurt when no one has done anything to you that is hurtful. And then they pass again, and the next day is fine.

Today is one of those days.

I'm sorry Golden, and you're on vacation even. Come to chatzy if you can today and we'll cheer you up.

Civility and consideration are dead. Very seriously.

My oldest child threw up tonight. The smell seeped into the foam cushions, not to mention all but two rooms on the main floor. How can a four-foot-tall person contain that much vomit? How??!?

G-Man wrote:My oldest child threw up tonight. The smell seeped into the foam cushions, not to mention all but two rooms on the main floor. How can a four-foot-tall person contain that much vomit? How??!?

Yep. That's about what it looked like.

Elohcin wrote:I WANT A DISHWASHER!!!

I lived without one for one summer. It was bad.

Looking for a house now, and among all the old houses in our area, this is one thing we look out for. No matter how good the deal, no dishwasher = no buy.

I'm a little bit sick and I haven't heard from Mongoose in weeks. I'm going to bug her now to comfort me during my time of illness.

thellama73 wrote:I'm a little bit sick and I haven't heard from Mongoose in weeks. I'm going to bug her now to comfort me during my time of illness.

She's busy with her new cat and being promoted. No time for sick llamas. Hope you feel better though.

juliets wrote:

thellama73 wrote:I'm a little bit sick and I haven't heard from Mongoose in weeks. I'm going to bug her now to comfort me during my time of illness.

She's busy with her new cat and being promoted. No time for sick llamas. Hope you feel better though.

I've been promoted, and it doesn't take as much time as you think.

My car is sick. After 11 years and 124,000 miles, it might be time to put her down. Not looking forward to that so soon after replacing my wife's car.