more layoffs

Today was another sad day. Another round of layoffs happened early this morning. 18 people were let go. I was lucky enough to survive another round but I can't help but feel bad for the people that lost their jobs and have to go out in this economy to find another one. I think what is even sadder is that some of these people have been with this company for many years. To think of going to the same job for over 20 years. Your coworkers become your second family.

There was one lady that annoyed me. Even though she meant well and was nice there were things about her that drove me nuts. She had mentioned in the past that if there were more layoffs she wouldn't be surprised if she were let go. Well she was right. I saw her leave the building with her purse and box of stuff in hand and that was just a sad image. I wish her all the luck as she decides what to do next.

As we were walking to the townhall meeting to hear about what was going on from our company president, one of the ladies from our team was hugging her crying daughter. The daughter was let go from another team in our company.

I hope these layoffs are the last round but I know that is highly unlikely.

oh sookie!

We just finished watching the newest True Blood episode. The episode ended with me yelling at the TV, which is similar to me watching LOST. It is such a good show even with all the fornicating which makes it good enough for HBO. I'm currently in love with Stephen Moyer as Bill Compton. Mmmmm.

I found out another lady at work watches True Blood and I chatted with her a little bit. I would never have spoken to this woman otherwise because she always looks like she's mad and hates everyone. Now she sometimes says hi to me. It's always nice when you can make friends over vampires.

We tried looking for the books but so far it looks like Amazon is the only place that carries the set. We were hoping Costco would have them when we went today, instead we found everything else we weren't looking for!

things i want to ramble about

work- this is the last week of working on our current system. i'm scrambling to work all my spring buys. everyone is scrambling to get their work done. everyone's stress level is through the roof and at times we are grouchy, cranky and short with each other. other times we are loopy, loony and absolutely going out of our minds. i've been working 9 to 10 hour days for the past few weeks trying to catch up. today we had a deadline that kind of was a surprise for me and spent most of my day trying to beat that deadline. now there are two days left to finish up the rest. friday we start our system conversion so at that point no one knows what will really happen. i'm hoping to take an early out day since i've already made up my time. we'll see how that goes.

tv-we are addicted to another show. true blood. we caught up watching through netflix and now we are caught up with season 2, i think. i would like to read the books as well. i heard the books are like candy, easy fast reading. between watching true blood and district 9 i've been having the weirdest dreams.

vacation- i can't go on one unless it's like a day trip. getting married, going on a honeymoon, and that second vegas trip has taken all my paid time off days. i have 3 days left and i'm holding onto those until the end. another 2 years and i'll move up to the next bracket and i'll get more vacation days!

i'm done rambling for now.

support local business!

today my coworker was really excited.

my c.w's daughter is going to be a junior in high school and has been in the band as a clarinet player. for the past two years my c.w has been doing so much for the band by volunteering as a booster mom, so she knows how much band means to her daughter. my coworker told me that they have been renting a clarinet from beaver's band box for the past 3 years and so whenever they need reeds and other musical stuff they go visit the store. this past saturday they went in for new reeds and when they walked in they saw a blue clarinet that both mother and daughter thought was awesome. the daughter asked for it right away even offering to put in her money to help pay for it. of course my coworker told her daughter that they weren't going to take her money and that they would find out if there could be a deal worked out. the blue clarinet was on sale for $200 which didn't sound so bad. so today when the husband went in to try to strike a deal, beaver's band box people told him that they would just apply the money from the rental to the instrument. the final total would be $4.14!

that is just amazing! you never hear about that unless the intention from the beginning is to rent to own. i'm just shocked but so happy that there are businesses out there that still give a damn about their loyal customers!

um...did you just slap my butt?

i was at the copy machine minding my own business when i felt a whap on my butt from a thick stack of papers. i turned to my left to look at the person that just assaulted me and figure out who could be brave enough to do this. when i turned the lady had already walked 10 feet away from me and happen to turn around to smirk at me when we caught each others eyes. she doubled back and apologized several times saying she thought i was this other lady. i calmed down...at least it wasn't a guy. she introduced herself and then i introduced myself. she asked me what department i worked in and when i told her she said " well see we know each other now...it isn't so bad!"

the funny part is that the lady she thought she was getting is the HR secretary.

i know 3 songs!!!!

i'm pretty sure these are dudes we saw in concert last night. yesterday afternoon my SIL and then later my brother called me asking if we wanted their tickets to go see journey. zac picked up the tickets on his way home from work and we headed off to go check this out.

it was at the ava amphitheater at casino del sol so that was cool since we'd never been there before. as we were driving into the parking lot zac rolled down the windows and a band was already playing. i asked him if it was journey and he wasn't sure.

we went into the casino to quickly munch on something before the show and as we walked out of the casino and across to where the concert was i kept asking zac if it was journey playing. shows how much i know about them. turns out it was.

the place was packed and i wondered how many of the ticket holders had freebies like we did. we stayed for a while and i recognized 3 songs that they played then we headed back into the casino to play some video poker. on our way out we realized the band was playing their last song so we ran to the car to try to beat the horrible traffic leaving the parking lot.

it was a fun night.

if i only had the nerve

to tell people to shut up!

we had a 2 hour meeting today that was about 1 1/2 hours too long. meetings make me angry to begin with but long meetings make me want to go postal especially when there are 20 million other things that need to get done! at the end of the day my manager came by my desk saying it was a long day and i commented "yeah it didn't help we had a 2 hour backorder meeting!" his reply pretty much blamed his boss for her endless chatting.

i wanted to laugh in his face but i want to keep my job.

i just hate when meetings aren't concise and the same shit gets talked about over and over. our higher ups keep telling/complaining about the new system conversion and fine we understand the problems but its not like the conversion is going to stop. so after complaining and telling us all this stupid crap that just goes over our heads because we haven't actually seen the system they tell us to just take it in stride. ugh!!!!

and my other frustration...men....i know men automatically shut off when women start to bicker/chatter/talk....just like we do when we have to hear about boring boy stuff but OMG at work i'd like to get my sentence out before you say "no, i know....blah blah...i'm going to keep saying the same thing over and over that i just said for the past twenty minutes"

you aren't listening and if you would just let me get it out without interrupting me, our conversation could have ended 20 minutes ago....instead i give up in frustration or i try to ask the same question 20 times because you won't let me finish! ugghhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!