Tag Archives: Hatelife

hating the job right now

Posted on by
4

I quit posting to hatelife quite awhile ago, because I didn’t really hate anything. Honestly, I hadn’t hated anything since highschool, and there was only so much old angst I could post about.

But I’m back, baby!

Yeah, I know it’s nothing original to be hating your job sometimes, but that’s what’s going on with me right now.

In essence, my boss acts like a three-year old. He has terrible communication skills (and he knows this), but all of our communication is done over ICQ.

Naturally, sometimes, I have no clue what he’s asking. Usually he’s good about my requests for clarification, and just responds. But sometimes, he throws a temper tantrum and just signs off ICQ and won’t answer his phone, because:

He’s mad at me for not understanding.

What the hell? First of all, it’s not *my* fault that he doesn’t make any sense. Secondly, he’s the boss! He’s not allowed to throw a temper tantrum, because when he does so, it holds up my work, because he won’t answer my questions!

AAAGH

To make matters worse, I can’t really say anything, because who knows how the boss will handle criticism from his subordinate, and I don’t wanna get fired for this.

Nonetheless, I’m sick of this shit. I’m going to talk to him about it, and I’m going to do my best to make him understand what a terrible position it puts me in when he pulls this bullshit.

Hatelife is Catching a Cold over Thanksgiving

Posted on by
3

I must not have been taking good enough care of myself over the last few days in Portland, because I was starting to get a little sniffly before we left. I just blamed it on allergies, though. However, after the twentieth time that I blew my nose on the train, and the old man two rows in front of me shot me a dirty look again (he did this EVERY SINGLE TIME), I was forced to admit that I may have caught a cold. And sure enough, I woke up the next day with a sore throat. Luckily, on the way to their house, I got Annie’s parents to stop at the store and allow me to purchase some cold-fighting-materials. Laden down with Odwalla Vitamin-C-Monster, Orange Juice, Ny-Quil and 7-up, I triumphantly proceeded to engage my disease in chemical warfare. Commence saturation bombing with Vitamin C! Drink lots of 7-up! We’ll drown the buggers out! Oh no! The Ny-Quil has caused me to begin a lengthy and nonsensical war analogy!

I spent Thanksgiving day staring blankly into space, and took a nap. I remember eating dinner, but that was pretty much my only lucid moment of the day. The next day I felt much better, so I was able to have some fun with Eric and Jill (and Gavin) when they came to town.

Hopefully the two weeks I have until my DSL line is installed, during which I have to bike or walk to my parents’ house every day will not prolong my cold.

Oh, and final note before I’m off to more Ny-Quil induced sleep: Harry Potter was disappointing. Maybe it was because I had just read the books, but it seems to me that if the movie is 2.5 hours long, they could have done a better job. It seriously felt like they just went through the book and pulled out every other page. I think that as a visual accompaniment to the book, it’s fantastic… but it doesn’t stand on it’s own.

Post 9/11 Concerns

Posted on by
Reply

(This is a copy of an email I recently sent to a friend.)

You know me well enough to know that in general, I’m an optimist, and I want to believe that the government has our best interests at heart. If for no other reason than that college is full of anti-establishment people, and I tend to play devil’s advocate. After September 11, this tendency on my part has grown even stronger.

So knowing that, you’ll understand what a big deal it is that after reading this article, even I’m feeling some pangs of concern. I feel like a character in a Doonesbury strip… the confused guy who is slowly becoming aware of his environment… “wait, you mean, the government is doing these horrible things on purpose?”

[http://www.zmag.org/GlobalWatch/chomskymit.htm]

The interesting thing is that I’ve already learned at least one thing. I found it hard to understand the animosity a large portion of the rest of the world seems to feel towards America. I realized today the reason for that. Socially, this country has gone through so much upheaval in the last 100 years, that there’s a feeling of “yes, our forefathers (and even fathers) did horrible horrible things, but we’re different! We’ve changed! And we can’t be held accountable!” It’s a strange feeling of guilt mixed with an outrage that you can be held responsible for the actions of people who came before you.

But that attitude is the opposite of the attitude held in many other cultures, where there are stronger family ties, and a larger sense of connection with history. Other countries seem to have a different attitude regarding their pasts. It’s not that they celebrate the horrible things their forefathers did, it’s just that there’s more of an acceptance of them.

I’m phrasing this poorly, but what I’m getting at is that I can see now why a society that doesn’t have this American attitude of “leave the past behind” wouldn’t see a difference between the America of today and the America of 100 or 200 years ago. And that’s ignoring the possibility that our government today is just as horrible as our government has been in the past, in which case, of course no one sees a difference, because there is no difference.

Ooog. I doubt I’ll ever stop being an optimist, or even steer much away from my tendency to trust the government… but it was interesting getting a glimpse of the other side.

We Met Blackflag

Posted on by
Reply

Last night, KT, Steve, Annie and I all went to a bar called the Blue Moon to meet blackflag from hatelife. I must admit, I had some reservations. I’ve only met a couple people from online, and those meetings were horribly awkward and uncomfortable.

This meeting, however, was great. We all ordered some food and drinks, and then we complained about the crummy service while we waited for our orders to arrive. The conversation wandered all over the map. There was some discussion of hatelife and other online stuff, naturally, since Steve and I like to talk about ourselves and it was one thing we all had in common. But we talked about lots of other things and had a great time. When we left the bar, we ended up all going back to Steve’s house to watch the Tao of Steve, which I had never seen, and I loved.

End result: Blackflag is a cool guy that we all had fun meeting. He’s currently considering moving to Portland, which we all encouraged him to do. It would be nice if he moved here, because he fit right into our little group.