Cleaning Desk and Mind

So I've finally updated my blog on my LA trip (July 2008). It's just been sitting for a while. It was part of cleaning up my desk on the weekend. I recently bought an MP3 player, mostly b/c it's super-hard to find decently CD/MP3 players, and the 2 that I have are pretty dead. I'm back to using my older one (which had the issue of skipping, randomly stopping) for travel, and left the newer one for sleeping to b/c it had the issue of randomly repeating the same note 60x/sec until you pulled out the battery. Which was underneath the CD. So yeah, it kinda sucked. Hilariously enough, my MP3 player is from Sony who were the makers of those CD/MP3 players. Anyways, it was a result of getting a $25 coupon at their VIP event, + $20 off the MP3 player, and thinking I should enter 2001 finally. So I have the purple NWZ-S545, and have uploaded all the MP3s on my computer. Which left over 9 GB. Unfortunately Windows Media Player 11 sucks and can't play (let alone convert) any of my anime or most of my videoclips. Even though if they're .avi or .wmv. WTF?! VLC Player rules. Anyhoo, back to what I was supposed to be talking about. The store didn't have any leather cases for it, and who the hell wants to use a silicone case that'll turn my beautiful purple player into some puked-up looking thing? So I had been reusing the screen label to prevent scratches. But I lost it somewhere on my desk. Hence, the clean up.

I do have Radioshack screen protectors now, but I did boo-boo and there's dust underneath. The Radioshack/Source dealer said they eventually come off, I guess we'll see how long they last. Due to the fact that my $25 coupon only lasted that day, I had 0 research on the player. So it sat in the box for a couple of days, while I Googled. It's not bad, I did play with it a bit, and it's playing right now. I'm using it instead of Sonique b/c lots of my music are in folders, which Sonique has problems w/. The speakers aren't bad, not as good as my computer speakers, but that's expected. I'm not too thrilled w/ the fact that if you have it on music, and then switch it to pictures, you can't get back to music. Really annoying when it's on shuffle. Pretty annoyed that you can't have alarm and sleep timer on at the same time. If you set it to alarm, it immediately turns off. I've looked at some possible cases, and I'm thinking of crochetting it. The headphones will stick out of it anyways (unless it's a mega-case, in which case, how's it going to fit in a pocket?), so it just needs to be protected from scratches (a big issue apparently) and bumps. My cell's done pretty good after 3+ years.

Speaking of cell (and to think that my wrist has been hurting all day. Yesterday it was my right that would get sharp pains if I bent it a certain way. Now it's the left), I just renewed my contract. They called me for "customer satisfaction survey", which of course was the sales dept to see what they could offer. I said a new phn would be nice, but I don't like anything they had. So he was like, well I can offer you a $5CR each month. And since I'd recently looked at my plan (I'm going to be travelling soon, so wanted to know what the roaming chrg and plans were), I knew that I wasn't using that many minutes and could save so much more money if I switched. So I was like, "well how about you drop the system access fee?" (It's $6.95/month) which would give me the price of the other plan, but I'd have 150 more daytime minutes but still ppu for SMS (which I don't use much anyways). So he's like, well I can check if my mgr can authorize $10CR for 2 yr contract. So my bill's going to be lower for the next 2 yrs. I wonder if the system will forget to remove the CR once the contract's over.

*sigh* So down to the nitty-gritty. Today, one of my co-workers (someone I'd considered to have good sense and consideration) asked me if I could cover the office everyday at lunch so that everyone in their group can go at the same time. B/c it's just far too much of a hardship to not eat with your cronies every 3rd week. OMG! Get some perspective! Someone dies every 6 seconds due to hunger. Oh boo-hoo, you don't get to eat with your friends! Waah waah!

They (I'm sure it's not just her) thought that it was fair since I eat at 12:30 and they go at noon. When I pointed out that I may not eat at 12:30 all the time, due to work or such, they said that they could arrange something at that point. To which, I pointed out that we currently have a schedule where every Assistant takes turns covering the office during lunch, which helps people plan when their breaks will be. And when we're not scheduled, we can go whenever the he11 we want. I also pointed out that our Director told us that we should have an Assistant and Advisor in the office during lunch due to the fact that the RDG walked in to find an empty office. I didn't point out that the Clique never takes 30 min lunch breaks, so I'd be eating at 12:45 instead (since she's usually pretty good with coming back in the 30 minutes). But yeah, after being told that I'm the office donkey, I was so ready to leave. Even if I'm going to get training as a Superuser. It's a major tug-of-war btwn my ethics of being grateful for the opportunities I've gotten in the Dept (thus incurring a degree of loyalty) vs. the growing detest at majority of the office. Honestly, they remind me of Convergys HR. If I'd encountered them first instead of my friends at the other dept, I'd never have stayed in HR. There are good HR people, they're just not in this office!