If you recall I have five employees that are telecommuters. They have the luxury of working from home. As part of my duties as their supervisor I must make periodic home inspections to make sure everything is on the up and up. What IÂ’m checking for is to make sure that all the equipment that the company gave them to use is there and in working condition and that they are following the agreement they signed to be eligible to work from home. This includes:

-Verifying that the floor plan for their home office is correct.
-Confirm that work area is a separate space from common living area of home.
-Confirm that work area has a door with working lock.
-Confirm file cabinet has a working lock.
-Verify it is a distraction free environment (no television, pets, children or elderly they have to take care of.)
-Verify that homeownerÂ’s/renterÂ’s insurance policy is active.
-Verify working Smoke Detector.

We actually have a checklist we have to go down. If they fail the inspection, then they have to return to working out of the home.

Today I had to do my first round of home visits. IE The Inspection! Of course, to make sure that they donÂ’t cheat, itÂ’s a surprise inspection. Meaning, I just show up during the times they are supposed to be working and make sure everything is on the up and up. The whole thing is rather uncomfortable for everyone involved. I really donÂ’t want to go in their house, and they really donÂ’t want to just surprise them by stopping by, especially if itÂ’s a bad house day.

Of course there is some fun to be had. I hit the first minionÂ’s home. Everything was squared away and fine. She had all the information I needed and everything matched as it should. When I went to check the smoke detector, it wouldnÂ’t go off. Of course she gave me the song and dance that the battery had been unplugged because of a cooking incident. Once the battery was plugged back in, it worked just fine. However, I couldnÂ’t bypass this opportunity to tell her that I was going to have to fail her because it hadnÂ’t been plugged in. At first she believed me, but because I was in a hurry to get out of the house, I let her know right away that I was kidding.

One of the houses I went to really threw me for a loop. Management has joked about going to the houses and seeing people working in their pajamas. I just never thought I would actually see it. Nope, when I rang the doorbell my minion answered the door in her pajamas. She had everything on the up and up, but it just made me a tad bit more uncomfortable. I was really glad that one of my Peers was with me, just for proprieties sake. And trust me, this is the only time you will ever hear me be honestly thankful for this peer, because she in general gets on my nerves.

One of my minions is a smoker. When I visited her, I saw that she had ashtrays next to her computer. Our company has a very strict no smoking on company property policy. I had her going that I was going to have to revoke her work from home privileges because she was smoking while on the company time. I explained that, even though she is at home, the equipment belongs to the company and that while she is on the clock, she is not allowed to smoke. Because she was in violation of that, I had to bring her home. I even went so far as to show her in the agreement papers she signed; it states she must follow all company policies. I had her going pretty good.

I let her off the hook as I was walking out the door. We all had a chuckle about it, of course she was relieved. She didnÂ’t want to have to go back to working in the office.

So my first set of home visits went well, IÂ’d still rather not do them, but if I have to, I hope they all go this well.

Posted by: Contagion at 07:06 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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Sometimes people meet just don’t get along. It could be because of political or religious beliefs. Maybe it’s because of an incident in their past, such as a perceived slight or insult. Sometimes it’s just because their personalities clash. I’m sure we’ve all seen this. Ron meets Jerry for the first time at a friend’s house. Afterwards while speaking with the mutual friend they make the comments, “I don’t know, I just don’t like that guy. He’s a total douchebag.” These are the most fun, because they can spiral out of control quickly. They almost look for things to not like each other about.

Now these two can be even more “fun” in the workplace. Yea, you may not have to like each other, but you have to work together. They will do good for a while, and then something will blow up and they will drag everyone they know into it.

Well, I have this situation at work, and me being me, I couldnÂ’t help but to take advantage of it for nothing more than to make myself laugh. I have a Peer which henceforth shall be known as Talkative Peer (she never shuts up and turns a 15 minute meeting into a 2 hour meeting), who has a personality clash with another member of management that will be from now on referenced as Sports Girl, because she coaches and plays a lot of sports. Sports Girl and Talkative Peer have disliked each other for at least 3 years. They have always clashed and sometimes the arguments get so involved it was brought to staff meetings to resolve. We donÂ’t dare let them be in the same room alone. Yes, they hate each other that much.

Sports Girl used to be a peer, but she took a voluntary re-assignment to an Inventory Management position (similar to one I used to have). She didnÂ’t like the responsibility of having direct reports. In her position, we report to the same asst. manager. On Friday before I left for the weekend, they dropped the bomb on us that our current asst. manager is being moved to the other department in the office, and my entire department is going to report to one asst. manager, instead of two. Because of this Sports Girl is now going to have to report to someone at my level instead of an asst. manager.

IÂ’m sure you see where this is going, but IÂ’m going to finish the story anyway.

I walk up to Sports Girl this afternoon and say to her, “I hear you are going to be reporting to Talkative Peer” (Talkative peer has other management reporting to her, so this is a plausible situation.) Sports Girl eyes grew three times their size, her jaw fell into her lap, the blood drained from her face leaving her once copper tanned skin the moon pale look of a night shifting computer geek that only sees the sun when he has to wonder to the comic book store to buy the latest limited edition Laura Croft action figure to “play” with.

She looks at me with a horror that I had truly never seen in any humans eyes before in my life. Tears started forming, and her eyes became bloodshot. You could actually watch as the tiny veins filled causing the read lines to spread across the sclera (White part of the eye). Her breathing increased and small beads of sweat started to form on her forehead. In a very thin and wispy voice she says, “wh-what?”

Now I could have been nice and let her off at this point, but to be honest IÂ’m not that nice. So I said:

“You’re going to be reporting to Talkative Peer.”

Her eyes almost rolled back in her head and she wobbled a little in her chair.

Her, “Really?”

At this point, before it turned into a medical emergency because she was starting to hyperventilate. I let her off the hook with a, “Nah, I’m just horsing around.”

Her look of horror contorts into a glare of anger. Her wide open eyes narrow, her almost corpse like complexion flushes back to an angry red. I swear you could almost see the veins in her eyes bulge! Her muscles clench as if sheÂ’s getting ready to try to attempt to remove an arm and beat me with it.

“THAT’S NOT FUNNY!!!!”

Me, “The hell it’s not!” Meanwhile I’m barely able to stay upright from the laughter. The rapid and complete change of moods from content in work, to deep seeded fear and finally to rage in under 30 seconds. The complete physical transformation that went with it was HILARIOUS!

I’m holding onto the edge of her desk because I’m laughing hard enough to get dizzy. I’m trying not to laugh so loudly I distract the entire office, so I’m trying to hold it in. Watching me laugh so hard, she started laughing. Called me a jerk and said that “I was a real bastard” She only got away with the last one because I actually like her.

She told me that since Friday when she heard about this whole issue, she had feared that was what was going to happen to her. So when I verbalized her “worst fears” the thought that they wouldn’t have told her first ever crossed her mind. We then had a brief conversation about who she doesn’t want to have as a boss. She said she would rather have me then most of my peers. I told her she was a damn liar. Of course that got a chuckle out of her.

This is good, because sheÂ’s a bit uptight. Okay you could put a lump of coal up her arse and get a diamond in 24 hours.

Posted by: Contagion at 05:30 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Wow, I’ve been really neglectful. Over the last couple of days, I actually started going down my blogroll… the one that is mislabeled “Blogs I regularly read”.

WOW. Just wow.

I knew that I had let my job kind of take over things in my life and that my blogging has really taken a dive for it. That includes reading and keeping up with my regulars. As IÂ’ve gone through and started clicking on links, I see that some blogs havenÂ’t been updated in years. Some have ceased to exist or the ownership has changed hands. Or it had been so long since I had been there that when I started reading posts I realized that a lot of big things have happened to these people and I just had no clue!

WOW.

Heck some of the blogs I used to comment on daily seem to have died to the point that the post maybe once or twice a week as opposed to once or twice a day.

Then again, the same thing goes for me. Then I realized what happened. I had “unauthorized” people from work find my blog. These are people that if they read my blog and went back and said something in the office, it would get me in trouble. Because of these people I really decided that I needed to scale back and not blog about some of the stuff I was… mainly work. Well those individuals that found me are no longer with the company or in my office and I just never got out of “private mode”

Yes, I still blogged some about work, but when was the last time I shared a really good Minion story. Hell when was the last time I even referred to my people as minions?

Well since I am fresh out of give a damn about work. IÂ’m turning the filters off and actually going to try to make some rounds from now on. Maybe not as actively as I was before as I do have some resemblance of a life, but more than theÂ… oh say NEVERÂ… that I have been doing.

IÂ’m gonna start with trimming the MIA from my blogroll and updating the new sites on there.

Posted by: Contagion at 03:48 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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1 I've been so busy it was a choice between blogging or reading blogs. I decided to just keep throwing posts out there. Although I had to finally open my feed reader and divide all my blog reading into days. This is just a sucky way to do it, but at least I can manage to hit most blogs I want to read once a week. If you can find more hours I can add to my day for blog reading, I'd really appreciate it.

Posted by: Teresa at April 01, 2009 06:33 PM (ybEr8)

2 Great site this miasmaticreview.mu.nu and I am really pleased to see you have what I am actually looking for here and this this post is exactly what I am interested in. I shall be pleased to become a regular visitor

Posted by: Sweecurebug at April 04, 2009 04:53 AM (3xhy+)

3 excellent site this miasmaticreview.mu.nu great to see you have what I am actually looking for here and this this post is exactly what I am interested in. I shall be pleased to become a regular visitor

Posted by: weabbike at April 10, 2009 05:05 PM (3xhy+)

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After a year and a half in federal prison for gun running charges, Grau finally showed up again. He's moved... kinda. He's now at WWW.Frizzensparks.ORG. Yes, that's ORG, not COM. As he put it, Now Less dot-Commie, More dot-Orgy! To translate that for everyone. That means he likes the Orgy (hopefully not the 11 way. You know what happens in prison).

Go over and welcome him back.

Posted by: Contagion at 08:43 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I have a secret, a huge one. I've been sworn not to tell anyone. The only hint I can give you is that it involves this sentence, "Sex! Naked women with huge tits and buckets of viagra!"

And trust me, this secret has nothing to do with me!

Posted by: Contagion at 05:09 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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Okay, this is mean... yet funny. It's a compliation of various clips of girls doing stuff and failing miserably. Some of it is trying to dance sexy, some of it is just other stunts. There is no nudity, but some of it does involve scantly clad women. Enjoy!

Posted by: Contagion at 10:40 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Ever wonder if you are a nerd or not? Looking for the definition on what makes you a nerd? Over at Mighty God King, he has a post up about what is and is not Nerdy.

I figured most to all of my readers are at least slightly nerdy. However, I know of two that classify as Dangerously Nerdy. But I wont say who.. yet.

Posted by: Contagion at 10:08 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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There were a lot of adds from the Super Bowl, but honestly, this is the only one that has ear wormed me into singing it for a week.

Posted by: Contagion at 09:38 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Ktreva found this video of a prank where a guy hooks up a car battery to the kitchen sink. Watch as his unsuspecting victim not only touches the sink once, but twice.

I'm not sure what's funnier, his reaction or the fact he went back for more. lol

Posted by: Contagion at 12:37 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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1 Heh - now that's funny right there... Don't care who you are... But if he had friends over you *know* he would have made them try it too... That's what friends do!

Posted by: Richmond at January 26, 2009 07:14 PM (sYscx)

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Okay, so all day long all I've heard is how cold it is. Yes, we made a record low -24 degrees. Sure the hair IN my nose froze between my front door and the truck. Okay, I had icicles hanging off my facial hair. I get it, it's cold.

But that doesn't mean I want to listen to you whine and complain while you pump gas. I don't want to listen to your sad story about your car not starting while I'm waiting my turn to check out. Heck, I don't care that you just moved here from Arizona and you are convinced the Cubs just won the World Series.

However, I did enjoy watching you struggle with your doors opening because you washed your car yesterday and the water froze everything shut.

Welcome to Northern Illinois!

Posted by: Contagion at 07:46 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Right now outside it's snowing pretty good. We've gotten about 8 inches of snow since yesterday evening. Now anyone that lives in Northern Illinois and Wisconsin has to know how to drive in the snow. Then again, sometimes the conditions get so bad that you just shouldn't be on the road.

Yea, it's like watching a ballet of stupid.

Posted by: Contagion at 01:05 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Okay, this is for the hunters out there. This hunter was respectful of his prey enough to let him finish before taking him out.

I wonder if the rush of adrenaline after the act makes the meat taste better?

Posted by: Contagion at 11:18 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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This is wrong, absolutely wrong! Do not... NOT click the attached link. Unless you really want to loose more innocence, or any innocence you have left, do not click this link!

Ewww, Ewww, Ewww!

Posted by: Contagion at 12:28 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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Blogspawn Petey of Petey's powderhorn is contemplating getting a an AR-15. Except he wants it in the not so wimpish .223 round, but in the more respectable 7.62X39mm round. The same that is shot by the AK-47. I say he should just get an AK, they are easy to use, easy to clean, more durable and don't jam up anywhere near as much as the AR.

Plus the AR is the most common firearm bought by wannabes. Every time I go to the range you see at least a dozen ARs. My theory is that since the AR is the civilian model of the M-16 and M-4 Carbine. Most people want to believe they are armed like the military. Me, I just want a weapon that has a function outside of varmint hunting. (If you look at the .223 boxes at gun shops they are classified as a varmint round.) It's because of this popularity that they make 10,000 different accessories for the AR.

Yea, that about sums it up.

Yes, I know that is a M-4 in the picture, but it's not my design

Posted by: Contagion at 03:12 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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1 I actually like the AR. But then again . . . I never met a firearm I didn't like.

Posted by: oddybobo at November 12, 2008 04:40 PM (mZfwW)

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...as of this post. Go help this poor schmuck out. I mean, how much lower can you get?

more...

Posted by: Contagion at 06:11 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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I've been hit with pepper spray before, because I was going through a training course on self defense. When it came to the pepper spray portion the instructor said that each person had to be hit with it in order to understand how it works. To be honest, this video is pretty accurate in peoples reactions. When I worked in security and Law Enforcement I used it on people multiple times, including once in a jail fight.

The fact that they kids did it just to see what happens shows you that they are idiots.

However, I did find it amusing that the guys friends laughed maniacally when he was suffering.

Posted by: Contagion at 11:50 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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1 That was absolutely priceless!

Posted by: Rave at October 05, 2008 09:42 AM (2M/UD)

2 So you post this right after I post that I'm going to buy and start carryin' this stuff?! Are you gangin' up with T1G and tryin' to tell me something? ;-)

Posted by: Tammi at October 06, 2008 07:33 AM (pWX3U)

3 That's funny stuff, I don't care who you are.

Posted by: Navy CPO at October 06, 2008 02:22 PM (FzhYM)

4 Watching that brought back the taste of CS gas from basic training 20 years ago. The stumbling about looked familiar (just add streamers of snot & spit). I don't remember whining like *this* little beotch though, just a lot of gagging and choking... :-P I love the way the others giggle at him, too.

Posted by: Wes at October 06, 2008 10:25 PM (1crE/)

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I'm going to preface this post with a note for my wife: My darling Ktreva, please do not read this post. I know how you are senstive to my dislike of the soap fearing clans of roaming idiots, but this story was just too good not to share.

In order to get prepared for the BlogCrawl shoot tomorrow, I headed to a local gun store to pick up some 30 round mags and ammo. As I pulled into the parking lot, which is shared with some other local businesses, there were four hippies, tie dies and all. standing on the sidwalk. As I pulled in I was greated with "Hey man, No guns, more fun!" and "Guns are the root of evil."

Of course I just smiled and waved at them. I walked in, picked up my items and as I was leaving there were still there chanting something about the evils of guns. When I went to leave I had to wait for traffic. My windows were rolled down and one of the female protesters asked me "What do you need a gun for?" I couldn't help myself, I responded with:

"It's Happy, Hippie Hunting Time! I'm going to go bait a field with tie dies and pot and see if I can bag my limit."

The ghastly look on her face was classic.

So in honor of the day and the BlogCrawl I present:

The 2008 BlogCrawl Happy Hippie Hunt!

Posted by: Contagion at 08:49 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Someone out there really wants to ruin peoples fun. They put together a quick paced video clip of some of the most famous spoilers in book and film.

I just can't believe he left off that Soylent Green is people!

Posted by: Contagion at 10:21 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Okay, I've heard people complaining about Hurricanes for so long that I just took it for granted that they are bad horrible things. Well today Hurricane Gustav* hit Tulsa. The temps dropped to 66 degrees, it's windy and sure it's been raining all day long, but seriously folks. This isn't bad at all.

I'm not sure what the fuss is all about

* what's left of it

Posted by: Contagion at 07:49 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I didn't realize that T1G moved to Texas and opened a daycare center. 5-Year-Old Leaves Day Care, Goes to Hooters. T1G just wanted some hot wings and couldn't leave the other kids unattended... and he seemed like a really smart 5 year old.

Not that I'm making excuses.

Posted by: Contagion at 05:00 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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