jynxed's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Adventures in Big Bear: Part I So, It was Friday afternoon, the sun was shining, or at least trying to, and I was working, or at least trying to. I had just cleaned up my desk (under orders) and was trying to crunch some data so I could begin work on my next report. I glanced at the clock in the bottom right of my screen...3 o'clock. I could get the data crunched by 4:30, no problem, then Amanda was going to stop by and we would hit the road for Big Bear to meet her parents. "Nathan?" Uh-oh, my brain belched. It's The Man. By "The Man," my brain meant my boss. "Yeah?" He moseyed on in and took a seat in the office. He has to mosey...he's from Texas. Only Texans can look like they're in a hurry and still mosey. He had his cup of coffee in one hand and a bundle of papers in the other--my report. "I've gone over your report," he said. "It's almost there, but there are a few more changes I need you to make." "I saved it on your computer. Instead of printing it out and making your corrections in pen, why don't you just make them yourself? That'd be a hell of a lot more efficient, and you could rework it as many times as you want. Oh wait. I'm sorry. I thought I just farted, but you know what? I discovered, much to my amazement and against all evidence to the contrary, I have time just OOZING out of my ass! I would love to reach into my Fruit O' The Looms and carve our company into a nice big old juicy chunk of it. Really, I would." "Oh," I really said. "Okay." He handed me the report and I flipped through it. I saw lots of red ink. How could this possibly be "almost there," and why do I feel like I'm in frickin grammar school. "Sorry, Nathan...instead of saying 'Using the collected data,' you should say 'Extrapolating the collected data,' so I'm afraid I'm going to have to give you a B-." "Do you think you can have it to me before I leave so I can look at it over the weekend?" "Hell no." "I don't think so...I'm going to Big Bear with Amanda." "Oh, well then could you e-mail it to me so we can send it out early next week? Thanks." "But--" But he was gone. E-mail it to him? From frickin Big Bear? The only way I could e-mail it to him is if I finished it off that night before we left because we weren't going to be back until late Sunday night! Gawd. I grabbed my cell phone and stomped downstairs and out the back door. I called Amanda. "Hey hon," I spat into the phone. It's not nice to spit at your fiancee. "What's up? Are you okay?" "Not really. The Man needs me to finish up my report before I leave tonight, so instead of 4:30, you'll have to meet me here around six." "Oh, okay." She was a million times calmer than I was. "I'm sorry hon." "It's okay, really." She really did sound okay with it. Blasted patient girlfriend. :) I went back inside and started pounding on my keyboard. All kinds of boring scientific shit started filling the screen. Log P, pKa, pH, chromatograms, Log D, pH profiles, tables, charts, diagrams, and even midgets in drag. Sadly, I'm just joking about the midgets. Anyway, my 2 co-workers and my boss hit the road around 5:15 and I wanted to hit my monitor with my forehead, but knowing my luck, I'd put my head through the monitor and have shards of glass sticking out of my head like a deformed unicorn on crack. Naturally, they turned off the air conditioning. Seething in sweat, I stomped into my boss's office and turned it back on, leaving the light on so I would remember to turn the air conditioner off. Would it really have been that difficult to ask me to turn it off when I left? I suppose so. I mean, after all, they trust me about as much as I trust high ranking political figures. At six, I send the damn e-mail, shut everything off, and went outside. Amanda was waiting for me. I kissed her hello, then loaded her stuff into my car. We hit the road a little after six. We talked all the way up to Big Bear. We had both brought a ton of CDs, but we just got to chatting and after what seemed like a few minutes, three hours had passed and we were just a few short miles from Big Bear Lake. [[ To be continued... ]] 12:39 p.m. - July 10, 2001 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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