dianaschnuth

From: Diana Schnuth
Sent: Thursday, September 09, 2004 1:36 PM
To: ‘Aaron R. Schnuth’
Subject: RE: hi there

Today was one of those days where I was glad I have an hour lunch. First, I had to wait in line behind two people to use our one microwave. Then, after I had my frozen meal cooking for about a minute, a breaker must have tripped, because the microwave and the coffee maker just shut down. After I was done staring stupidly at them both and willing them to come back on, I went out and talked to the receptionist, who said that our facilities people aren?t in today. We then happened upon the boss-lady, who sought out the one contractor who?s been working on the new lunchroom, and he tried to help and found that the reset thingy on the plug doesn?t work… Finally, the boss-lady moved the microwave to another plug across the room, and I finished cooking my half-cooked microwave meal. Twenty minutes after I clocked out for lunch, I finally got to eat. Sheesh.

—–

Update: As of Friday, the coffeemaker was back in business, and today the microwave was moved back to its customary spot. All is well with the world.

I just won a $500 gift certificate to GiftCertificates.com!

A few weeks back, Sky Bank posted a survey on our intranet site regarding our corporate culture. The big gimmick to get people to complete said survey was a drawing for one of 27 gift certificates, ranging from $1000 to $100. I got back from vacation just in time to finish the survey before the deadline, and I didn’t give it any more thought once I’d finished.

Until today.

One of my cube-mates was checking out the intranet site (“Sky Central”) and informed me—once I’d gotten off the phone with whomever I was helping at the time—that I’d won something. So, I reloaded Sky Central, clicked on the story link… and found that I’d won freakin’ $500. Damn!

Aaron and I haven’t figured out what we’re going to buy yet, although household appliances and computer upgrades are at the top of the list.

There was an amusing e-mail conversation today between myself and Rob Wozniak (of RCC Special Projects Team fame, who works in my department). Yesterday, he called a radio station and won the new Velvet Revolver CD—he told all of us in the office that he’d make us a copy, since we were all so intrigued by the idea of Guns N Roses meets the dude from STP. So, today, after the office discovered my newfound booty…

Rob:
You can buy your own cd now with your mighty 500 dollar gift certificate!!!!!
Show off!!!

Me:
*ppppppppthbt*
Sherry?s been telling Scott that he should be nice to me ? maybe I?ll buy something for my co-workers… (right.)

Rob:
My thoughts exactly.
Buy something that?s gold plated. Just because its overly flashy.

Me:
I wonder if I could get a gold-plated video capture card…?

In other “holy fuckamoly” news, my Smurf auction is up to $94 with a little under two hours to go.

Nice.

Random thoughts from the workplace:

There’s a woman at work whose name is Mari. It’s a Spanish name (actually short for Xiomara), so the R is pronounced with a bit of a flip. Some of us can get it, some can almost get it (saying Mah-dee), and some really don’t get it at all and chew it up so bad it sounds like Maudie. One person joked around and told her we were going to start calling her Molly. Very few people chew the R and call her Mah-ree, though, which must be a relief to Mari. I don’t know, though… morphing Mari into Maudie is almost as bad.

I got a “Gotcha Card” the other day for helping to solve an issue with a client’s autopayment. I felt really guilty about getting the kudos, though, since I’d actually caused the problem myself a few weeks ago. Some stroke of luck or fate or karma had me dealing with the perplexed banker who had to deal with the irate customer who had an automatic payment taken out of his account after he’d cancelled autopayment. As a result of this unexpected debit, the man managed to bounce several checks and rack up some massive NSF (non-sufficient funds) fees at his other bank. And why did the autopay pull after it had been cancelled? Because yours truly left out a step when she fulfilled the request to cancel autopay. I didn’t let on to the banker, though—I just let her know that it was our error in Loan Corrections. To make things even better, I had to ask my supervisor from which general fund the banker should refund the client’s NSF fees, and had to admit my own personal guilt in the process. But I got a Gotcha Card for defusing the situation, and I almost don’t want it.

As a final note: As I was wasting away the last 15 minutes of the day by running to the kitchen to freeze my water bottle, and to the recycle bin to dump my basket of shreddables, and to the mailroom to drop off some outgoing mail, I saw one woman trying equally hard to while away some time. She wasn’t doing nearly as good a job of looking busy as I was, though: she had her trash can full of shreddables sitting on its side atop the recycle bin, and was peering at the papers inside. Not taking them out of the one and feeding them into the other, mind you—just looking at them. Watching them. As if she expected them to start making the journey on their own. Good Christ, how obvious can you make it that you’re just trying to waste the last ten minutes of your workday?!

Ahem. I’m better now.