Refraction

Ooooookay, so on a bolt of inspiration, I stumbled on LinkedIn.com and searched for my former supervisor. He’s found a new job, so–good for him! I just find it a little odd, to be honest, that someone else he used to work with is also working there… hmm…

(I tried searching for two other group members as well, but their profiles are closed off. Wouldn’t it be odd if they were all working together?)

[/stalker]

I’m back at school now after a year-long hiatus in the working world.

I’d forgotten the things about school that I like (fun profs; learning things; seeing old friends) but there are also things that I don’t miss (midterms; buying books; bureaucracy; competition).

It’ll be an interesting term, to say the least :3

I miss my former co-workers.

Things I am annoyed with right now, in no particular order:

• A certain associate director at work. My supervisor is on vacation at the moment and so I was told yesterday to compile the work I’ve done over the last three weeks for a meeting tomorrow. I do so, send him the files, and then sit down to a meeting where we go over said data and come up with slides (!!) for this meeting. Meanwhile, I’m thinking, “WTF slides? I hope you’re presenting this.” I re-send him the slides for editing, he hacks and slashes them, and then sends me off with “So, you’re going to do this, right Catherine?” AGGGGGH.

  Let me emphatically state ONE THING: I DO NOT LIKE HAVING PRESENTATIONS ON SCIENTIFIC MATTERS SPRUNG ON ME. Especially scientific matters I don’t know an awful lot about. (I could rant about this, but then well we might step into confidentiality issues…)

  Suffice to say I had a bit of a nervous breakdown after that meeting (why does this sound so familiar?) and um, the same lady who found me in nervous breakdown state last time found me again this time. As my surrogate supervisor, she offered to present for me. “But Catherine, it just doesn’t feel right taking credit for work I didn’t do.” It was seriously all I could do at that point to stop myself from saying, “That’s funny, that never stopped [my supervisor on vacation] from presenting my data.”

  I really should not be taking this so hard. However, I have several issues with my whackload of slides, the foremost being that the director has NO BLOODY CLUE what I’m talking about. The work I’m presenting tomorrow is a month old. I need time to refresh my memory of things.

  I also have new, perhaps more pertinent data to discuss. Unfortunately, I haven’t had the time to process it because I’ve been working on these damn slides all day.

  I don’t like the way the director has instructed me to structure the presentation. As it stands, it really has absolutely no flow. Things jump from one thing to another without really being connected (and now you kind of see why I’ve hated the last eight months of work.)

• Myself, really, for breaking down and letting the idiot win.
• My supervisor on vacation, S—-, for several things: 1) calling this meeting (apparently it was his idea, or maybe I heard this wrong–after all, who calls a meeting while they’re on vacation?); 2) being on vacation and leaving me to flounder; 3) not telling me that this meeting was going to happen and that I was going to need to prepare for it; 4) leaving me to clean up a whackload of his stuff; 5) never having brought me to ANY of these meetings and therefore leaving me COMPLETELY IN THE DARK ABOUT WHAT TO EXPECT. S—-, sorry, you are seriously NOT COOL and that parting gift you gave me? Also not cool. Am I the only one who thinks that you should give gifts for your giftee and not really for yourself?
• The group at work, for PILING WORK ON ME in my last two weeks. HELLO PEOPLE! I AM GOING TO BE GONE IN LESS THAN TWO WEEKS! NOW IS NOT THE TIME TO START NEW EXPERIMENTS!
• Myself again, for taking work home with me. I work enough overtime as it is.
• My mother. I really need to move out. Unfortunately, I need money to do that.
• S—- at work, who seems to have absolutely nothing to do and therefore spends her time distracting other people. It’s not easy to tune her out when she sits next to you.
• G— at work, for–I don’t know. This one’s more complicated than the others, and I’m not really annoyed with him. In fact–

At work there’s a bit of “war of the radio stations” going on–it seems three or four people each have strong preferences about which radio station is best suited for working in the lab, so we swing between:

• Soft rock/adult contemporary/easy listening
• Modern rock
• Classical
• Top 40-ish type music
• French talk radio (that’s me, and I only dare put it on when I’m in at 7:30 in the morning. Which I think has happened approximately once.)

Anyway, so today we have the adult contemporary station, and I hear a snatch of a song that goes something like:
“everybody wants to be understood … you are loved …”
I think to myself: “Who wrote this song? Are they kidding themselves? ‘You are loved.’ ‘You are loved.’ What an excellent and gripping hook. And why why why why would Josh Groban sing this?!”

I’ll be the first to admit I don’t always pay a huge amount of attention to lyrics (seeing as how I don’t understand the lyrics to half the music I listen to), but when I do, lyrics can really make or break a song for me. I mean, I know half the songs on that station are along the same kinds of lines, but … I honestly wondered for about 30 seconds whether this was a parody of some kind.

Also, I think I’m just kind of bitter that I don’t get my random tune-out-able Top 40 music now. I’m not sure I really like it any better, but at least the music tends to be a bit more upbeat (important at the end of a long day.)

In no particular order:

• No one does “FULL MOON PRAYER” better than Fukiko Nakamura. Case in point: Youtube clip of COS performing live Far less wince-inducing than Nami Tamaki’s performance.
• Work is more and less stressful than school at the same time. I don’t know. I’m a little perdu at the moment. Maybe more than a little.
• Nachos are delicious 😀
• Note to self: lab book needs catching up. Also, processing of latest HPLC data needs to be done. Also, coordinate with Brian re: spectra (not “spectrums”) for new compounds.
• Jigglypuff is cute. But do you know what’s even cuter? Kirby as Jigglypuff.
• I have re-discovered my love for Dvorak. Anyone up for a game witht the Paranoia or Programming decks? (I plan to print out the “ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US” deck as well one day. It has pictures! :D)

I have been officially cleared to work for the federal government. 😀

Go me!

I want to test out a new WP plugin that I’ve just installed that lets me password protect parts of posts. Now I can be emo and you DON’T have to read about it!

In this case, though, I’ll just be talking about my new workplace–woo-hoo!

(Password is the three-letter acronym of my high school):

I have a job offer! *_*

(That’s a programming NOT operator for those of you who, like me, are programming-illiterate.)

Anyway, cover letters suck. Especially when you’re responding to a job posting that tells you nothing about what you’re actually doing besides “implementing experiments” and “preparing test materials.” Um, that’s great, Ms. HR director… now run that by me again?

The other requirements are equally banal. “Must have attention to detail and good record-keeping skills.” “Must be able to follow instructions.” Who ISN’T able to follow instructions? Seriously!

On the other hand, French class was cancelled today and I spent some time discussing my academic future with one of my Chemistry classmates, who tried to convince me that third year is the hardest one (I have to admit, I think he’s right–I won’t be taking quantum OR physical in fourth) and that sticking in Honours might not be such a bad idea.

Oh well. At worst, if I’m unlucky, the decision won’t be in my hands at all.

If I’ve learned one thing recently, it’s that I am not cut out for a full-time career in retail.

I am exhausted, which explains why I haven’t been in touch, or replied to emails (I read them and think, I’ll reply to this later.) Well, I’ve been working day shifts lately, and since my dad’s got these few weeks off work, we’ve been going out for dinner and the night market. I liked the Mandarin restaurant, because I didn’t have to say a thing at all! The night market is also much more amusing when you can eat, as opposed to wandering around because your mother is stuffing her face with food that you can’t eat.

See, the thing that really sucks about my job is that I never get to sit down, which means I’m standing (and running, and clambering up ladders) for eight hours. I reviewed the dress code for no particular reason today, which says I’m not allowed to wear ‘overly casual shoes’ since that ‘does not promote merchandise authority.’ I’m not good with flats for two reasons: a) lack of arch support; b) lack of height–heels are the way to go. (Besides which, our flats are ugly. But that’s another story.)

I worked 38.5 hours last week. It’s going to be something like that for this week, too, and I’m working the full 40 the week before I leave. On one hand, I was not expecting to work this much, and this will pad my budget for my trip nicely; on the other hand–grrrsummertourists!nohabloespanol!toomuchtodo!nofoodtoeat!.

Someone actually asked me for winter boots today. What was slightly more disturbing was that she started off the conversation with ¿Hablas español? I need to take a Spanish course at some point in the near future so that I can stay sane. And Korean. I need to learn some kind of basic Korean. “I don’t speak Korean” would be a good start.

Oh, and German, since I told Mrs. French that I’d be fluent by 2010. XP

My days off are jam-packed as well; I still have to buy:

• luggage
• summer clothes; I can survive the summers here, but I think it’s a lot warmer in Québec
• material to make that darn sheer summer poncho
• something I can wear to a ‘formal’ event in the summer

Not to mention that installing a simple game on the Linux box is taking the better part of my patience. I’ve spent about three hours on that, now, and it’s still not working. I’m going to cry.