IÂ’ve been whining about a head cold for three days. Which if that isnÂ’t bad enough, I ended up leaving work early today because of it. The incessant dripping of mucus down my throat was annoying enough, starting to lose my voice was even worse. When the front of my face felt like it was trying to bulge out like balloon almost made up my mind.

The icing on the cake was when I made a huge no-no. I took some Nyquil at work. Which, normally isnÂ’t bad. I just get a little groggy but I feel a hell of a lot better. Well not today. My brain when into a vapor lock and I ended up making a huge mistake. How huge, uh well I ended up violating some Federal laws. It wasnÂ’t intentional. But in my Nyquil addled mind and rush to get work done before a meeting I completely missed a simple step in one of our procedures.

This allowed someoneÂ’s personal information to be released to the wrong people. Quickly I jumped on the phones and started calling all over the place to do damage control. I think everything has been taken care of, and the information was stopped before it was actually sent out. We wonÂ’t find out until tomorrow if they where able to stop it in time.

So now I feel like a big wussy. Because I couldnÂ’t handle the discomfort of a head cold I ended up making a big mistake.

Posted by: Contagion at 11:57 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I feel like IÂ’ve been put through a washer. Last night I started developing a sore throat, that turned into a full blown head cold by midnight. Between the post nasal drip and the river of snot flowing from my nose, it was a little difficult to get any sleep, which didnÂ’t help the cold any. That meant my mental capacity is not working at fully acceptable levels all day.

Then to make matters worse we had the first day of a three-day Audit at work. Not an internal audit, but an external audit. An outside company came to check our policies and procedures as well to make sure we are in compliance with State and Federal law. Guess who has to go before the audit review board this afternoon? ThatÂ’s right, Mr. Groggy head. Why me? Well to be honest, I do most of the inventory tracking, I almost always wear a shirt and tie to work even though I donÂ’t have to, and IÂ’ve had experience going through these before.

I knew this was coming and that I was going to have to give testimony, but I didnÂ’t realize what it was going to be like. I spent an hour and a half being grilled by a panel of four over where we get our information, how we come up with our figures, and how we confirm that the information is accurate. Since two of the panel have never worked in my industry, it was really difficult to try to explain things to them.

About half way through, I started developing a headache. That made things even more difficult. Then they start questions where I came up with these procedures and policies. Folks, I would like to say that my mouth filter kicked in and that the last year of working hard to be a better corporate citizen paid offÂ…

…but it didn’t. I spouted off, “I didn’t. Someone else came up with them, I was just taught how to find the data using these methods and have been doing it since. If you really want to know why things are done this way, I suggest you come back three months ago and ask the guy whom I took over doing these reports for.”

Yea, probably not the best answer. An hour and a half later I’m finally released from my tribunal. I feel like I was raked over hot coals. At one point I had to lead the panel on a field trip to my desk to give them a demonstration of the reporting system and basic math. No I’m not joking. I couldn’t get them to grasp the concept that Beginning inventory + Receipts – Ending Inventory = Releases. Yes it was really that simple.

Now if youÂ’ll excuse me, IÂ’m going to go mix some Jack-quil D to take care of this head coldÂ… and to forget.

Because I get to do it again tomorrowÂ… only over a different procedure.

Posted by: Contagion at 05:30 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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Theresa of Technicalities talks about the lack of foresight by our elected leaders when they altered Daylight Savings Time. I agree with her, why fix whatÂ’s not broke. Unless you want to break something so that people can spend money to fix what they broke. Yea, that was a confusing sentence. Me, I have a simple solution.

Today at work I announced that I no longer recognize nor observe Daylight Savings time. This year I will not change my watch, reset any clocks or anything. I am officially on Contagion doesnÂ’t give a flying rats arse time. That means that if they do not show up by 7:00 AM CST (Contagion Standard Time) they will be counted as late. If they leave after 3:30 PM CST they will not get paid for hours worked outside of standard business hours.

I explained to all of my peers and managers that if they do not comply with my time, then they will be violating my diversity and insensitive to my personal beliefs. I will be offended by their lack of diversity and understanding. The work hours will rotate around my scientific and logical belief that politicians cannot dictate the time. Sure they can tell you they are going to change it, but if you think about it, they really are not. They arenÂ’t changing the time; they are just telling you that the time is different. If they told you that between March and November that grass is actually orange, and everyone says it is orangeÂ… itÂ’s not really orange!

Well dammit! IÂ’m taking a stand! IÂ’ve turned off all the daylight savings time features on my electronics and am set to make my stand. It is currently 7:30 PM in exactly 168 hours it will still be 7:30 PMÂ… not 8:30PM that Congress wants you to believe it will be.

So donÂ’t buy into the conspiracy to take away our time! Take back your watches, your clocks and your hour of sleep!

Now if youÂ’ll excuse me, IÂ’m going to go replace my tinfoil beanie. IÂ’ve seemed to torn mine in the rant.
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Posted by: Contagion at 07:26 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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