Meet The New Cubers - Part I

The train has been rolling rather smooth the last day, so let me take this quiet time to introduce some of my new cast of characters. Being as I only know most of these people in passing, these nicknames are subject to change.

First is my department supervisor, Kitty. I call her that because she reminds me an awful lot of the mom from That 70's Show. And in a strange sort of way, she's got that same G.I.L.F. quality to her. Hey, don't judge...

Next is my direct boss that, to continue the celebrity lookalike, I've been calling Dangle because he looks like Lt. Dangle from Reno 911! In addition to the look, he also has a tendency to explain things in a very matter of fact way that, if you actually think about it, makes absolutely no sense most of the time. He's just winging it and doesn't care.

Baywatch is my group lead. Her name is remarkably similar to that of one of the stars of Baywatch, and I've got a growing suspicion that she's about as smart as her bimbo namesake. I have yet to see any quality that explains why she's in this group or the lead of the group. Maybe she's got talents I'm not privy to.

There's an extremely old guy that works the night shift with me that I've been calling Peck. His real name is some ancient name that sounds like it belongs in a fairy tale. No one calls him by his real name, as he prefers to be called Pick, which is part of his last name. Having seen the movie Willow many times and watching Val Kilmer's Madmartigan character call Willow a peck over and over, the association was natural...and no one seems to notice either.

Next is Uber Geek. I really don't have a better name for him because nothing else really fits. I could alternate between Geek,Dork and Nerd, but it's all the same in his case. I've never met someone who is a bigger dork, nor anyone who is more proud and carefree about it. He is an incredibly smart guy...he's just an Uber NerdGeekDork. If you've ever seen the movie Grandma's Boy (which is hilarious), the owner of the company, J.P. , is a dead ringer in looks and personality for Uber Goober.

The guy that works 2nd shift, and subsequently the guy I probably know the best, I've been calling Mr. Rogers. He's a small, diminutive man, who says everything in a very calm, even tone. Unlike the childhood legend, our Mr. Rogers has a rather nasal voice that makes everything sound like he's whining slightly. So far I've had a hard time telling what he is and isn't really whining about, cause it all sounds the same.

One of the longtimers, and oldtimers, here at the hospital is Bob Hope. He's incredibly cynical, sometimes spiteful, often inappropriate, and probably my favorite person here. He's a smart guy and doesn't take shit from anyone. He also looks like Bob Hope when Bob Hope was 50 or 60.

That'll have to do for now, I actually have to go and do my job now.

The Train Keeps On Wrecking

It’s been a long, hectic week. The big project that was supposed to go live a week ago didn’t completely go live until last night. It took an entire week to do something it should have taken seconds to do, but with any big switchover it’s inevitable that things will go wrong. Like thousands of medications having to be scanned by hand because the old database is suddenly, “unforeseeably” incompatible. Someone, somewhere lied to someone else, somewhere else and really screwed everything up.

To anticipate the final go-live last night the powers that be put us all on 12-hour shifts, putting about 6 people on the night shift where I am usually the only one working. We were all bored shitless. We didn’t even find out the system had gone live until nearly an hour after it happened, and then it was just an afterthought. I took the initiative to go floor-by-floor to talk to the nurses and see if there were problems they weren’t reporting. Turns out there were tons of problems that they were reporting, but the software vendor supporting the new system was pretty much just telling them to deal with it. Fill out a complaint form and deal with it. Good policy. The bad thing is that on my tour I realized there is no separation between the third-party software support, which isn’t me, and the on-site dedicated PC support that has nothing to do with the software, which IS me. So there were lots of people that were really mad at me. I lost count of how many people passed me saying something along the lines of “I don’t EVEN want to see you people right now,” or “You can just turn around and get back in the elevator.”

I tried on several floors to explain the difference between me and the other support group and felt like I was making some headway and then some old nurse from the 7^th floor pointed me out to the Charge Nurse on the 5^th floor saying I was the reason it took them 4 hours to deliver the 9pm drug pass. I could see the fire light in her eyes, and then spread like a brush fire in a drought from one nurse to the other. That’s when I turned around and got back in the elevator I had just come out of.

To further that feeling of train wreck, we were told that we’d be on 12-hour shifts all week, not just last night. It wasn’t a big deal to me. It didn’t really affect when I woke up or what time I got off, it just meant that more of my day that I’d be surfing for porn or drinking lattés was now being spent sitting at my desk trying to get all my IM’s working on my Blackberry (which I kind of hate having). However, when I got in to work today, and had sat around for about 40 minutes someone suddenly asked me why I was there. They had been talking to me the whole time and it just dawned on them that I was there and wasn’t supposed to be. Seems I missed out on that e-mail that said “hey, you don’t have to be there for 12 hours anymore.” So I got up and left. It’s not like I’m going to sit around for a few hours for no reason, when I don’t have to. Oh, what’s that noise? I think I hear the train coming again…let’s see if we can wreck it again tonight.

Cluster, Meet Fuck

I know it has been a while, but things are very hectic right now. Last week was a combination of cramming all of us with as much information as they could possible throw at us, but not telling us anything we really needed to know to start working. The hospital has a huge electronic medical records project going live at 2am tonight, which is the reason everyone is so frantic, and the reason there were 10 new technicians brought in and it just seems like more going on than they could really handle.

I start third shift tonight, which is going to suck because I had to show up at 8am for a few hours of application training and then couldn’t get to sleep once I finally got home. I have a feeling that it’s going to be a VERY long night. The real problem is that I still don’t really know what I’m doing. I won’t be alone, at least not this week, but I get the feeling that I will have my training wheels taken out from under me starting next week. I know eventually I’ll get comfortable with their process and maybe even find my way around the hospital, but right now it seems unbelievably daunting.

The perks of the job have already become apparent though. For the first time in three years I was able to go out during the week. All I did was go bowling, but for three years that hasn’t been an option. Because of my previous 2^nd shift schedule both my mornings and my nights were ruined and in order for me to do anything I had to take the entire day off. It wasn’t very efficient to take a day off every time I wanted to have dinner or even get a cup of coffee with someone. I actual run a risk of having a social life.

I’m going to try and get some sleep before it’s time for work…

Pain and Suffering

So it's been a hectic last few days. This will be a bit of a recap of the last days of life in The Cubes of yore, the events of the weekend (a rare glimpse into my off hours), and the rising sun of life at the hospital.

My last day at work was incredibly boring. There was of course the obligatory goodbye's from coworkers. I had the longest conversation I've ever had with Serialkiller and hopefully the last. I annoyed me that he talked about how it had been a pleasure when we never really interacted. I understand being nice, but I'd have rather he just left without saying anything. Stonehenge mouth got a bit emotional when I left. He didn't cry or anything, but he said at least a half dozen times how much he really, REALLY appreciated all the help and understanding and, my favorite, compassion that I showed him while I was there. If they only knew. The day was cut in half when my boss, The JC, told me to go home 4 hours early...so I did. And that was it.

The weekend was a bizarre mix of pain, torture, and 80's music. Saturday I got free tickets to a local radio station even where they were having an 80's themed "second chance" prom. It was funny considering I never went to my first prom. It was sad that my second chance was with my sister. Sunday was like a re-enactment of the Bataan Death March. I went with my family on a kayaking trip that was supposed to be an early morning paddle lasting about three hours. Instead we got a late start, and the three hour tour turned into eight hours. On top of that, the temperatures spiked over 100, and we ran out of water about an hour before we finished. The problem was the lack of rain in the area that made the river very low meaning that we never got to go more than a 1/4 of a mile without having to get out and portage around sand bars, dry spots, and formerly submerged debris. In reality, it was more likely that we had to get out every hundred feet or so, with very few long stretches. In the end we were dehydrated, severely sunburned, and absolutely exhausted. Which made for a a great first day on the job the next day.

The next day being orientation it was a good thing there wasn't much needed of me. I had gone on that 8-hour kayaking trip on only two hours of sleep so I was still operating on a deficit come Monday, along with the shock of having to wake up at dawn, fatigue, and painful sunburn. The last two days have been an overload of safety policies, benefits packages, inundation in the mission and ministry of a Catholic run hospital, and staring at this one nurse's superb ass. I met with my fellow support coworkers that were being hired at the same time (a total of 12 coming in at once) and was forced to take a Blackberry home with me, which compromises my personal aversion to always being connected to my job. Having a work connected Blackberry was something me and Sith Lord used to make fun of Serialkiller for doing, thus turning us into minor hypocrites. The only difference is our Blackberry's are company provided and mandatory, whereas Serialkiller bought his Blackberry and broke company security policy to have it connected to the company server.

Tomorrow is our first day of actually being in our department and getting a sample of our job, so hopefully more fun will surface. The only nickname I came up with during training was Mr. Rogers, who will be in my department and is so calm, quiet, and mild mannered that he too is probably a mass murderer. We'll see.

The Final Countdown

Tomorrow is my last day and nobody will let me forget it. The odd thing is the fact that people seem to think I've forgotten. They must have, why else would they kept telling me it's my last day. The bad thing is, several of them keep getting it wrong. Some insisted that today was my last day. I'm not sure if they're stupid, can't remember, or assume that I'm just not going to show up tomorrow. We'll see if they're right.

I've been training my replacement this week, which is an odd feeling. On one hand I feel like warning him about all the stupid shit he's going to have to put up with, but on the other hand I want him to have to learn it on his own and try not to predispose him to hating certain people and feeling slighted about things he may not otherwise care about. I wish him the best of luck. The only thing I can't decide is whether or not to give him a nickname before I leave. My last gift to my former Cubers. I have one last day to decide.

I did have a somewhat touching moment today. The Executioner (or The Bear, depending on who you ask) work Sunday through Thursday, so for him this was my last day and he actually got me a small gift which I thought was really cool. It surprises me sometimes when people actually show they care, or at least show ME that they care.

Two quick notes. My former obsessions with Dino Run has now been replace by Phun. Phun is a physics simulator sandbox game where you can create all kinds of nears machines. Check on Youtube for some crazy siege weaponry and torture devices created in Phun.

The second note is that I think I'm having an email conversation with a girl who is hitting on me for a green card and/or money. It's kinda weird. I'll keep you posted on that one.

Tell Me About Your Penis

Another quick one. I went Friday to get some vaccinations for my new job at the hospital. This was the second round of shots, but Sith Lord hadn’t been for the first round yet. Talking about getting stabbed brought out a quick fact about Sith Lord…he’s afraid of needles. So of course I played up the pain and suffering of getting the shots and blood work done.

By the time I went Friday for my second round, Sith Lord had been for his first and the nurse mentioned that he had been. She paused for a moment and then asked me with a bit of hesitation about Sith Lord’s fear of needles. She then mentioned that Sith Lord had confused her because he said he had tattoos and piercings, but was afraid of shots. And then the nurse blushed a bit and said that she couldn’t ask him, but she noticed that even though he said he had several piercings, none of them were visible. She finally got bold and asked where these supposed piercings were, and of course I told her the truth…his penis. She blushed, shook her head, and said she didn’t understand kids these days.

So yes, the same man who is afraid of getting a small shot, has pieces of metal in his cock.