The Puddle

I'm not getting any work done. None whatsoever. Of course, I'm not being paid to work right now, but that really isn't the point. I should be working. I should have had my inventory done by Friday. But I didn't finish it, there were so many more important things to do. Well okay not so much important, as needing to be done. I'm really uncertain as to what the difference is, except that the things that needed to be done were not as important as, well say the inventory I was supposed to be finishing. They were, however more necessary, because nobody could leave work until they were done. WEll I guess they could have because there are more doors than people there, so we could not gaurd each and every one. On the other hand, thinking about it most of the doors don't actually lead outside the building. Only about 4 of them. Well, five if you count the one that's attached to the shed which can't really access the main building proper, but I don't count that one, because the only people that use that are spiders, termites, and me. But I only use it once a month to carry the files out for storage. And I guess one other guy uses them once every six to 8 months (depending on if the bill is payed) to move outdated files to the rented storage shed. So the fifth door really doesn't count for this particular situation, but int he future it could, so it's best not to completely forget about it, just put it in the back of your head with the spiders.
So 4 doors that can go from the main building to the outside. And for the majority of the day there are, wow, actually there are only 3 people there. So we actually couldn't guard all the doors, and even if we could, it would be no use, because the people guarding are the people who want to leave. But...hehehehe there are actually 2 of those doors that have key locks that only one person has keys to open. Therefore, we could lock 2 doors, and then 2 of us could guard 2 of the doors and keep one of us inside. Then, for the second half of the day, there are between 4 and 6 people (technically that would make it 5 people I guess, but I mean that at times there are as few as 4, and at times as many as 6, and probably at times there are 5.) So the people do eventually outnumber the doors. The windows are barred, and there aren't that many of them anyway.
That is neither here nor there, because we are held by loyalty, and the love of our jobs, and would never even dream of leaving until the tast was accomplished regardless of whether the doors were unlocked, and unguarded or not. Still, people do occasionally get cranky, and the days can get long, so it is necessary to complete the daily drugery. So that's what I did, and I got clever and e-mailed the files for my inventory home for me to work on over the weekend. While I wouldn't get paid, I would get the satisfaction of knowing I accomplished something. But, I won't even get that now, because I am not working on my inventory. (I believe I may have mentioned that.)
What happened, was I e-mailed the files I needed to work on to myself. A very clever thing if I do say so myself. (which I guess I do.) Then I went into the program that I created them from, and started editing the numbers, and adjusting, and making corrections. Do not, for one second, believe, based on the previous sentance, that I would even concider faking my inventory. No not at all. Well not unless I e-mail the finished product to myself before I make all the final adjustments so that I'm not working witht he correct numbers. But that scenario is so far-fetched that it will never, ever happen. (well except for this weekend, and thinking back on it last month as well.)
No I am by no means cheating and faking my inventory. Or I wasn't then. The problem is that the barcode scanners we use to count products does not always count reliably. (But let's be honest here, who over the age of 27 does count reliably? Not saying that the equipment we use is over the age of 27, but then again it might be, I wouldn't know, I wasn't there when it was born.) So, there are little blips and bloops, and blunders,a nd other b words that I can't think of right now, but probably would be fun to say, because most things that start with b are fun to say. Think about it. Bubble, Brain, Barbells, Bounty, Beautiful. There is something Truly pleasant, and fun about the buh sound. Bbbbb maybe that's why babies use it so much. They aren't sofisticated enough to know that you are only supposed to use your mouth to communicate. It's wrong to have fun with your mouth, it's wrong to make noises just because they are fun to make. Okay, I don't necessarily believe the above statements, I was just itterating one of the unwritten rules of maturity. Sure there are many people out there who just have fun with their sounds. But on the other hand, they are looked down on for being immature, or crazy, and then get paid a whole bunch of money to do sound effects for cartoons.
So what I have to do is go through all the stuff we counted. Well not the stuff, because wading through piles of stuff would be counter-productive. I have to use the computer to look at the results of the counting. Find what went wrong. (preferably not using the sound effects and having my co-workers staring at me slightly frightened, and then talking about how immature I am. one of these days a cartoon will discove me.) Then correct it. Either, adding, subtracting, changing, or just deleting and pretending it never happened. The last option is not really a last resort though, because often the barcode scanners just make up numbers and stuff so it doesn't hurt to delete things. Then there is the human error, which I usually correct by cutting off the finger of the offending counter. (this practice is only to test to see whether they actually were counting on their fingers and toes. If they can't count as high next month, I know the problem, and can solve it from there.)

Finally after getting all the little details worked out the program creates a nice little Excel format program for me to conveniently use. Actually, that is not completely true either. I actually have to tell it to create the program. I don't actually say it, I type it. But a written order is a form of communication, so it counts as telling, even if it's not really exactly like I were having a conversation or anything. Just hitting the right keys in the right order. Technically though I only use the mouse, so I'm not even typing, but I am still transfering information, and data, so it still counts as if I'm telling. Kind of makes me miss the days of grunts, and pointing. (Okay, there was a bit more to the Army than that, but belching and drinking only counts as communication in certain circles.) So one way or another I get the computer to do my bidding. I bet it wasn't happy. Once that is done, I have to then use the corrected counts, and perfomr tests and checking, and savings. Wait no, that's after I get paid.

I test numbers and prices, and physically count certain random items that are not revealed to me until I think them up. (and believe it or not, until I think them up I have no idea what they are, or what they even might be.) True, it would be easy to use the same stuff every time, but that wouldn't be very random, and I doubt it would be much fun either. I then type (this time I actually do the typing.) that information into one of some other forms, along with the information from the program that I procured in Excel format earlier.

This was what I was planning on working on at home. The combining my testing information with the infromation from the count, and making it all presentable, and worry free for people who are paid better than myself. But, while I e-mailed myself all the correct information from my end of the tests, and I corrected the infromation from the count. I e-mailed the pre-correction information along with my personal information. So, I got depressed. I can't do my inventory.

So now I'm writing the story about how I can't do my inventory, and actually having a good time. I am certain that it makes little sense, and I don't know that I would understand all of it but I'm not actually trying to make sense, and it's not like I am trying to explain the inventory process to somebody. Why would I do that? If I let just anybody willy-nilly learn the secret and mystical arts of the inventory, why then I would be out of a job. Nope, none of that, I'm just writing. After all this is my writing spot, so that' what I"m doing. And having a darned good time of it. I'm going to regret come the morning and I have no inventory to show for my weekend,b ut that is a worry for another day. Besides, I can easily fake an inventory in under 20 minutes if it is truly necessary. Because it is never important to fake an inventory, but I have found through my life it's more important to do the necessary, than it is necessary to do the important. After all, if it's that important somebody else will do it. If it isn't, then you can fake it. (or something like that.)

I was thinking of puddles when I started writing this. I'm not sure why. I think because I like to splash in them while I'm driving. I liked splashing them when I was younger, but I wasn't allowed to drive. So I stole my parents keys while they were asleep. Unfortunatley they were only the house keys. We didn't have a car when I was younger. We did have a cow. It was a friendly cow. I think. I don't know, it neve really said much to me, but I was told it was a friendly cow, so that's the important part. Except thinking back we did have a car. It was my friend who had the cow. But it's easy to get yourself confused with your friends when you are younger. Especially if your friends had much more interesting exploits than you do. It makes me wonder if celebraties, and whatnot with their facinating life stories really had all that stuff happen to them. Or if they are just remembering, and getting confused with their friends from childhood. And let me tell you some of those stories, I bet they had to have at least 8 friends just to have enough space for all the exploits. I am unfortunate, I only had one friend. You can't even fill up half a book with the exploits of one friend. Looking back I should have made another friend, but it didn't seem so necessary at the time. I mean I had my friend, we had fun, the neighborhood cats were scared. Who knew that years from that point I would look back and wish I had more friends so I could write an autobiography. I think maybe if there had been fewer cats. Then, we might have gotten bored more frequently, and realized that other than torturing cats and trying to get a cow to speak to us our lives were fairly shallow and meaningless. ( I think I prefer the term meaningfree. I mean after all childhood should be free from meaning. It's a time of learning and exploration and throwing cats at cows, why ruin it with a bunch of unnecessary meaning.) So, cats are (as always) the problem. So make sure you get your cats spayed and neutered, because there are enough of us who don't have fantastic autobiographies because we didn't grow up with enough friends to get enough stories. there public service message done.

And I guess my hour of writing time is up. Well it's not. I was going to write for an hour because it's good practice, and loads and loads of fun. (Okay sometimes it's fun. Other times, it's something other than fun. I'm not sure what it is, an inexplicable not fun thing. It's not really the opposite of fun, it's just kind of there. I mean sure it could be exciting, or frustrating, or depressing, or boring, or many other things, however they aren't the things I'm thinking of. I'm thinking of something that exists in a state of other than funness.) But, it's getting late, and I should be going to bed because well if I don't it may come to me, and after last time I really don't want to repeat the experience. I am just glad it is only a waterbed, rather than one of those craftmatic adjustables. WHew I mean the craftmatics are not just mean, they are dangerous. You reaaly want to make sure you honor your bedtime with those puppies. Waterbeds, they definately are no picnic. (then again what is a picnic? other than a meal outside, or in a covered area that isn't a building, or even in a building, if it's a designated picnic area even for a short time? in fact what, other than a meal in a designated picnic are, is a picnic?) but they at least can be dealt with. A little bleach, a thermal blanket. If you get real desperate you can pop it in the freezer. Course it has to be a smallish bed, or a largish freezer. Etiher way, you don't have half the problems as you do when a craftmatic adjustable dead goes for the vulcan death pinch.

It has been fun this time. Got a lot of thoughts out of my brain, and onto the screen, where they hopefully won't hurt anybody. And even if they do, I am sure it's a good thing. After all that which doesn't kill you builds character. And I am sure my thoughts don't kill. If they did kill, I would have eventually graduated that stinking math class. I mean sooner or later there would be a teacher smart enough to see the patern, and pass me just to avoid the thought of doom. But my thought of doom never developed. I thought for a while that I had a thought of really, really sore throat, but then winter ended, and it stopped working. And that worked, now it has been an hours worth of writing. Not that I was in much of a hurry, but I think I hear the bed sloshing around.