Wednesday, May 29, 2002
Before I left for Japan, my boss came by to see how I was doing and suggested we get together so I can bitch at him about this and such. Maybe sometime the week I get back, he says.
Monday was a holiday. Tuesday he took the day off. Today he was in for a few hours, apparently, but has already left and is gone to a customer in Mexico until Monday.
Hello??
Or does he expect me to fly down to Mexico for our meeting? Argh!
Something else sort of fun: We had an ISO 14001 training session today. It's this international environmental protection standard--that's about all I know, except that the only way I'll be able to contribute is by recycling my waste paper, and they don't think it would be worthwhile to implement a recycling program. So unless I can find a way to reduce exhaust fumes, stop wasting raw materials, or reuse rinse water, I'll just go on my merry tree-killing way.
Anyway, we were metaphorically strapped into chairs and forced, Clockwork Orange-style, to watch a twenty-minute training video that put my brain into standby mode within sixty seconds. Time enough, though, to hear a very enthusiastic ISO proponent crow that "ISO 14001 is fabulous! It turns each and every employee into the guardian of their own environmental destiny." WTF? Sounds like they should tone down the environmental measures at her plant and consider venting some of the fumes. Just a skosh.
Conversation at work today, 9:27 AM:
Receptionist: When someone says "eight-ish", "sick-ish", how do you spell "ish"?
Me: I-S-H.
Receptionist: Okay! I had it right!
What a way to start the day. Frankly, I'm amazed at my self-control. Looking back on it, I should have asked her to go back to her desk, come up with five possibilities, and let me know what she came up with. I mean, Jesus. I'm a linguistics major; my specialty was phonetics. I had to put some serious mental effort into thinking up alternative English spellings of the sound "ish".
G.B. Shaw, speaking on the absurdity of English spelling, once proclaimed (facetiously) that "ghoti" spelled "fish"--"gh" as in "rough", "o" as in "women", and "ti" as in "nation". So how about "-oti"? I'm feeling a little tired-oti myself.
Hi there. It's been a while; sorry about that.
We're back from Japan now, and I'll try to write more often. I have this macro thingy set up to open this page once a day so I feel guilty and write something.
