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reality of these troubling times
Tuesday, February 13 2001
Oh the madness!
This morning the grand CTO of the US-based mother company (my direct superior for the time being) had his secretary call me into his office. That's usually not a good thing, but there was nothing much I could do about it. He told me that there's a desperate need in the company for me to work on the US site, that there's a huge multi-million-dollar contract whose deliverables are already overdue, and that, in the reality of these troubling times, the very survival of the company is at stake. So he was going to immediately yank me off the UK team and apply me to fulfilling this contract. I would be allowed to continue work on the UK site, but only one day each week. The UK CTO would be notified. "Are you like totally pissed off now?" he asked at the end. What could I say? Reality is reality, especially in troubling times. Sure, I'd do exactly as instructed.
Oh the insubordination!
But back in my cubicle the UK CTO kept up a cheerful AIM conversation as though nothing was even the slightest bit cocked up. She told me that our Indonesian contractor wasn't available until late February and asked if perhaps my old boss Linda wanted the job. Linda is sort of rusty with ASP/SQL, but it turns out that she really needs a job right now and I'm sure this stuff is just like riding a bicycle. So I arranged everything and set her up with a contract developer gig, beginning tomorrow. In this topsy-turvy dotcom universe, I'm now the boss of my former boss, although I'm not even supposed to be working on her project.
Oh the crappy service!
I went with Linda, Julian and two of their friends (both recently laid off from our company) to the Shack on Wilshire for lunch. I'd completely devoured my Shackburger and Linda had nearly done the same to her veggie burger when we both realized that Julian had never gotten his Shackburger at all.
Oh the character development!
Meanwhile Julian is busy preparing for his Friday evening webcast at Bathtubgirl.com. Via AIM he'd been asking me all sorts of questions about what kind of music he should bring. He also wanted to know if I ever listened to "Black Metal." If you call Type O Negative "Black Metal" then I guess I do.
Oh the foreshadowing!
Back at my house, John is now doing an extended overnight interview with a cute puppy dog he picked up from an animal rescuer. It's some sort of shaggy golden retriever mix and will probably grow to be a big floppy-eared mut some day. The dog isn't overly lively, which is good, though he is alert and at one point he even seemed interested in perhaps chewing on a power cord.
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