Guess I didn't have a Target on my back.

I’m not sure how far the news reached, but I’m sure it was a national story.

My employer, Target, laid off about 1,000 employees yesterday at 8:45a. It was a weird day in the office. It started out like normal. Just sitting at my desk catching up on my blogs and other internet things waiting for the phone calls to start. If I haven’t mentioned it before, I work in one of the very prestigious call centers. Glamorous work I tell ya. But really, I’m glad I still have it. Around 8:15a everybody, and I mean everybody got an email from the boss man, Terry Scully, President of Target Financial Services.

That right there made me wonder. We never get email right from him. Usually it's from his admin or some other corporate email account and signed by him. All it really said was there was an important announcement and every body should meet in the common meeting place for their floor at 9:00a. That too, was a red flag. They never have everybody meet at the same time like that. Especially the call center part of our building. Got keep some folks on the phone you know.

Around 8:50 my heart really got racing. I had a feeling what the meeting was and I was having one of those life flashing before you type of moments. If I lost my job, well, you can imagine it wouldn't be good. So, let's see...my bosses boss boss boss is the one who delivered the news. The meeting was at 9:00a, she said that everybody who was affected was notified at 8:45a that morning. So I was quite relieved. After that, I've never heard a call center so quiet. Even people who were on a call were quiet.

Slowly things got back to normal. Until I saw this girl who sits pretty close to me cleaning out her desk. Then it really hit home for me. I wasn't friends with her, but I will never see her again. She seemed in good spirits though. That was good to see since I have never seen this girl smile, until yesterday. Throughout the day I got IM's from former co-works who are now in other Target locations asking me if I was let go and how the rest of the department fared.

I guess this is where I reflect. I don't really want to though. I know a few others who got the boot yesterday. Yes, it sucks for them but I don't really feel to much for them. I wasn't that close. I guess this is a good argument for myself for why I don't have many friends. It's by design, not that I couldn't have any if I wanted to. Or maybe I can't, and I just say this to fool myself. I don't know. I have my two friends, Brother Dan and my wife H. They are the two I care the most for. Yes yes, I care for my other family too, but I don't really connect with them like I do with Dan and H. I wish Dan had kept up with his web site so I could link to it. It was going to be rad.

----END RAMBLING---

Right now, I'm listening to Rage Against The Machine - I'm Housin' (Live)

Another episode of The Olds

The Olds are back at it again here in the office. I’m trying to read my recap of The Office on TWoP and they start going off about Whoopi Goldberg. “Doesn’t she ever want to look even a little bit feminine? It offends me as a woman that she never dresses like a woman.” Said the female Old. They were commenting about her and the inauguration, somehow that switched to her and Barbra Walters and The View. From The View, I lost interest. Even for the purposes of writing about it, I just couldn’t handle listening to conversation about The View. Topic has now moved over to Franken v. Colman. Strong Franken support over here. I’ll tune into that conversation once an official announcement about a winner turns up. So, I guess I’ll be waiting for a while on that. Fine by me.

Tim & Eric short post.

Since I don’t have much that happens in my life, I should at least write about this. I don’t really feel like it right now, but if I don’t, I’ll forget. Man, I write a lot of bullshit before I get to my actual post don’t I? Me and the brother Dan went to see the Tim & Eric Awesome Show Great Job! 2009 Tour last night at the Pantages Theatre. It was a great show. Just as funny as the television version, but with more excitement. I compare TAEASGJ to country music. You either love it or hate it. It’s very weird and random, and sometime you just don’t know how to feel about what they’re doing. But that’s the fun of it. It was nice to be in a theatre full of people who “get it.” That’s it for T&E. If you want more detail, comment and I’ll respond. Wow, that seems like a really lame request. But I’m lazy today. After the show I only had my credit card on me and thought I could use that to pay for the parking. Nope, cash or check. So now I have to send them $5. Really? Do I need to do that? They didn’t get my ID or anything, at it was my brothers car I was driving. I guess I should, I’d hate for him to get messed up with city parking because of me. And it’s only $5, no biggie right? Listening to Gordon Lightfoot…in my head. Now, back to reading my recap of American Idol on Television Without Pity.

What a great idea!

So as I'm checking my feeds in Google Reader I get to my Dilbert comic. In the strip for today, Dilbert mentions his site Dilbertfiles.com. So of course I check it out to see if it's legit. And sure enough it is! What a great way to draw traffic to your site. If I had a comic strip that reached a zillion (oh yeah, that's a real number) readers I'd mention it every time I could. Even if I wasn't selling anything, just a stupid site full of my photoshop disasters.

Don't Kill for Love

No title from my weekend post.

Friday: I got off work early by using my gift of persuasion on the person that holds the power to my schedule. O.k….not really. I just asked if I could, she looked at our service levels, and said I could go. I really wanted to get home early so H could get her stuff done before her shoot in St. Paul. Once she was off I got down to business. (Back story! A few days earlier I had this huge itch in my left ear. So I went to town getting rid of it. After I was done with that, I noticed that I could not hear worth a darn. So great, I just packed my inner ear with wax. Not cool. I read up on how to fix this and the trusty ol’ internet said one way was to let olive oil sit in your ear for about 15 minutes. End of back story.) So now it was time. I popped in a Seinfeld DVD and laid down on the floor with the olive oil in my ear. I have to say, it a weird feeling. Kind of cold with a little slime feeling to it. I don’t really want to get to the messy details, but let’s just say, it didn’t work. Had my dinner (pizza rolls) and watched and episode of The Office (American version). After that, it was fun time for me. Junk food and video games. The night ended with H and her brother bringing home tacos. Somewhere in the middle of all that I got an email saying my Grandpa from California was going to be in town Saturday, and asking if I would like to visit. It’s been over 10 years so sure. Saturday: Nothing special for Saturday. H had another shoot, but this time it was at out place. That means it’s time for me to hunker down in my room with, you guessed it, junk food and games. Well, this time it was junk food and my jigsaw puzzle and the little brother played games. I also learn that my Grandpa and his friend got into a car accident. His friend went to the hospitable to reattach a part of his ear. Grandpa is o.k. Visit is postponed until tomorrow. Sunday: Little Brother has gone home before I even wake up. H has yet another shoot today and it’s once again at our place. So, back to my room for games. My brother Daniel beats me in NHL 09 in a shootout, playing over the net with Xbox Live. He then picks me up and we’re off to Wisconsin to visit Grandpa. The “kids” will be there too. Our little brother Ryan and sister Julia. I say “kids” because they are now 19 and 17 years old. Not really kids anymore. We hang out with Grandpa for a while. It’s mostly my Dad and him chatting about stuff. We get bored of that and head down stairs to watch some Shelley Duvall's Faerie Tale Theatre. We decide on Puss In Boots starring Ben Vereen. I’m now convinced that Been is the ultimate weirdo. Dan and I head back home without much excitement. Unless you count missing the exit to get onto 35w north. I get home to good news. H has been accepted into her first gallery for her photos. More on that once I get more details. Monday: Just got word from H that it’s .99 cent day at Savers today. I guess we’re going…and getting Subway after work. Do What You Wanna Do

The Deets! and the Olds.

I first started to write about the new challenge set forth by Mr. Ed Kohler from TheDeets. But then I over heard the olds starting to chatter. And it made my skin crawl.

First, TheDeets. (what is a Deets anyways? Like twiddley dittley deet? I should ask…someday) Ed sent out a message asking for his readers to start blogging about what they are passionate about. This is a great idea. I wish I would have thought of it first. And even if I did, I wouldn’t have posted it because I’m lame. Maybe I could have sold it to Ed! I’ll have to do that next time. Anyways, back to task. The few things I am passionate about I don’t know enough about, or it’s just to mind blowingly boring that I couldn’t even stand to blog about it. Like for instance, I love me a jigsaw puzzle. But what am I going to say about that? Hey, I fit three pieces in 15 minutes. Yay! The one subject I know so well is my job. But I can’t really blog about that because so much of what I do is for company eyes only. They would have a fit, like a fire me fit, if I were to get all loose lipped about it. Great…now I’m actually thinking about it. Like, take a photo for each piece I fit. No, I couldn’t do that. That would just be too much. And I know I would forget some photo’s too. And I don’t have a real camera, just my cell. O.k….maybe. When I’m done with my current puzzle, and if I remember, I’ll maybe do it.

Now, to the olds. The olds here at work just spent the last five minutes talking about their toe nails and the fungus associated with them. Operations they’ve had to remove them. How they are starting to curl into them selves. Oh, and that a good pair of wire cutter will do the trick for anything ingrown. We have such a small crew on the weekend that I can’t help but over hear what they talk about. Oh my! You can get two pounds of banana’s if you buy two of something else. I didn’t quite get that last part of the deal. Nor am I going to go any further with it.

Slave To Love

A new year, because I should.

I just wouldn’t be the responsible half-ass blogger that I am if I did post some kind of new years post. As I’m writing this on day two of 2009, that should show you how much I really care about it. And the fact that I even gave it a thought to write about it just a few minutes ago should say a lot. What I did for New Years Eve: I didn’t have to work, either did H (the wife. Have I established that yet?). She had a photo shoot so I had some time to myself. Played video games for the most part. Started to fill my queue on my new membership to Netflix. I’m finding out that it’s hard for me to just know what I want to watch, rather than just aimlessly wondering around Hollywood Video, looking at all the pretty boxes. Totally judging the movie by it’s cover. I leave it to H to read the back and tell me if I’m going to like it. Some how she much better at that than I am. Anyways, back on task. After the shoot we watched some Cold Case Flies on A&E and some of the Twilight Zone marathon that was on the Sci-Fi channel. My gosh, do those people know how to but on a marathon or what! I mean, I recorded them all with the DVR, and now have over 70 episodes. It will take us a good four months to tackle all of those. As is the norm lately, H fell asleep. That gave me time to watch the Wild play a great game and beat those pesky San Jose Sharks. H woke up and we watched some more Cold Case and before we knew it, it was 11:55p. It was also time for me to take the dog out. So, I spent my first few moments of the new year watching the dog do her business. Is this a bad omen? My new year is going to be shit? Lets hope not. New years aspirations? I guess I have one. Start building for a good 2010. I want 2009 to be the year we got caught up. We were just skimming by in 2008, but with the loss of H’s car, that allowed us to get some breathing room and start paying off some credit cards. I all ready got rid of one of my student loans. Only two more to go! Now that I think about it. If all goes right. We can catch up in 2009, and maybe in 2010 get out of our apartment and into a house or town home. Now that would be nice. Wow, re-reading my post, it seems really scatterbrained. Oh well, I don’t care. Eat It! Hehe….yeeeeah…word. I wanna dedicate this post to my cock. O.k. o.k…..enough channeling Marky Mark. You Belong To Me