It's Saturday and I've been slacking for good reason. I caught the stripper flu from miker2 who came home from his bachelor party/vacation sick. You'll have to ask him how good the lapdances were. So, my throat hurts, my head is stuffy and my head is achy and I don't really feel like doing much of anything other than sit on his couch. He's at the gym right now so I continue to slack until the need for a shower today becomes overwhelming.

Winter
I hate the fucking cold. I hate being cold. I hate being miserable because I am cold.

Pissy
I'm in a pissy mood for a couple reasons. The stress while adjusting to a new job. The fact that ex now officially makes 6 figures, while I will never be able to do that. (To boot, he got a bit annoyed when I told him I won't get a raise until next year.) The fact that ex is going on a business trip and a personal trip next week.  If I would pull a stunt like that, he'd bitch about it. My sister in law, who when she gets drunk and I'm around talks about how much she hates my parents.

Surf n Turf
Miker2 and I went out with my brother and sister in law last night to dinner. We had to wait over an hour for a table. The food was good. I had two glasses of wine and a half a glass of sparkling wine. I was feeling pretty good and actually ate all of my surf n turf. I could have done without the sister in law.

There you go
I should have pushed back my start date at work and traveled to somewhere warm. I should go investigate those Europe with a group travel deals, as if I continue putting it off, I will never go.

Work
This past week was frustrating at times. I attended this "welcome" seminar on Wednesday and when it came to my turn to speak, I got all nervous explaining what my job is. My boss has repeatedly told me two things 1)that my position title includes some duties not really endorsed by the owner of the company and 2)to be quiet and listen and learn the first few weeks I'm around. So, with that filter working interally, I tripped all over myself. Later that day, the HR guy who brought me into the company just happened to leave a brochure on my desk for a conference on speaking with "finesse and tact". I later saw the HR guy elsewhere and he spoke to me and didn't mention the pamphlet, which is still in my cube.

Later that afternoon, my boss and another manager and I were having a conference and the proofs for my business cards came in. My title does not say manager, but the title for my co-worker does. When I asked, my boss said "well titles don't matter and in addition to the web work, co-worker manages some other projects". For the factual, co-worker is older, has an MBA, been with the company for a number of years and does manage some other projects. His title didn't match up to what he does until now. And my HR contract does say I'm a manager. I don't care about the title, but I care about the benefits and recompense. And on the other hand, I do know that folks are frequently brought into the company and are reassigned to their areas of strength with a year, year and a half and we do have official salary reviews every year.

Thursday brought it's own version of frustration as my boss started out by coming into my cube and telling me that we can't do upload to shopping site because the IT guy told him he didn't have time. When I protested and said I had heard back from IT that he could do it, my boss then backpedaled and said he was afraid that other in the company didn't want to market our products that way. So, my initiative was shot down just like that and I finally got it through my thick skull that my boss wants any of my initiative to go through him first.

Lunch was free pizza as an editor person was getting honored for a successful publication. Then there was a retirement party for someone in a department that I don't deal with regularly, but I felt weird about attending and skipped that.

Later on Thursday, I got an email from a co-worker about a conference in NY next week dealing with my area of expertise. I was kind of annoyed as I can't go and the lead time was so short.

Friday, my boss made sure to ask me if I needed anything, showed me the supply closet and signed my timesheet. He looked tired and stressed and I didn't want to bother him otherwise.

Friday afternoon was a meeting for $secretproject that I was not initially invited to attend, but my boss wanted me to go since it appears I will be supporting it (co-worker is the design lead for it). Meeting featured the owner, who I haven't met personally and who wouldn't make eye contact with me. Most of the meeting was about goals and such but the important parts included the owner's idea of success for the project. Following my boss's earlier advice, I just sat down and shut up and let the really smart people I work with talk about mission.

I made the promise to actually get some thing done this week and I sat down and worked on some projects for this next upcoming week. Some of my difficulty with actually getting something done has been with co-worker, as he complains that he is so busy and overworked, but he then tells me he can't teach me anything. I am beginning to believe that IT guy was correct in his prediction that co-worker is threatened by me. IT guy has been helping me out some (and I inadvertently exposed a directory permissions fuckup done by his department that he blamed on some long gone guy), but I am not sure where the line between helping me out (to placate me) and looking out for himself is drawn.

So, with those dramas and the fact that I have to navigate through a maze of cubes to do anything simple like go to the bathroom or kitchen and the fact that I have no idea what to do for lunch and wind up at wawa on days I choose to go out. I am adjusting. Oh, and my cube is fucking cold.

In conclusion, life could be worse being namely, streaking at an olympic curling match.