Tag: work

Weekends

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When I was young, time crawled.
Now that I’m older, and the schoolweek is now the workweek, things feel a whole lot faster.
And it’s a good thing that the workweek goes by so fast. So much crap I just want to just get through.
It’s the weekends that matter to me. I live for the moment I can walk out that door and I’m free until Monday morning.
The problem is, if the week goes by fast, then the weekends go by even faster.
Sadly, Friday to Monday is a lot shorter than Monday to Friday.
When’s retirement again?

Helpful

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All our company’s technical support is moving to India.
It’s not because they are cheap workers.
It’s because they really like to help others.
Boatloads of them show up at our ports, asking if they can help with anything.
We send them back, and they offer to help with that, too.
“We’ll call you if we need any help,” we say.
They waited for the call, but we never did.
So, they started to help themselves.
These days, they’re the ones turning back boatloads of our people.
“We offered to help,” they say. “But we think you’re beyond help now.”

Training

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Instead of getting laid off, we’re being repurposed.
Today’s training session is for turning us into plants.
The trainer goes from seat to seat, jabbing us in the foot with a nutrient spike and then tipping a watering can over our heads.
One guy is being prepared for lawn duty, so they’re dowsing him with a hose outside.
Unlucky bastard.
I don’t like getting hosed down on a regular basis, but it’s a good promotion from what they had me doing before.
You can only take so much shit heaped on you, even if you’re supposed to be a mushroom.

The Chip

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I work at this place, maybe you’ve heard of it… Cyberdyne Industries?
Anyway, I needed an expansion chip, found one sitting on a workbench, turned out to be from the head of a Terminator.
Now it’s trying to take over the world every time I sync it.
I called tech Support and told them this, plus, it’s getting lousy reception. They told me to reboot it.
Now my downloads are faster, finally fast enough to take over the whole world.
Relax – they’ll come out with a 4G model next year, I’ll do the upgrade, and we’ll all be free again.

Healer

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I am a healer.
I heal the worn-down, the lame, and damaged.
If you have an ice sculpture that has lost an arm, a wing, or has melted beyond recognition, I can restore it to its former grandeur.
The water speaks to me, and with my frozen operating theater and trusty staff, we can bring it back from the brink.
It all started when I was young, filling ice cube trays day and night, obsessed with water as it went from liquid to solid.
Now, I gather their spirits and the treasured beauty is back.
Some ice for your drink?

The Night Of A Thousand Stars

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“Make a wish, Daddy.”
A tiny finger points to the night sky, silver streaks crisscrossing over each other.
“Those aren’t shooting stars,” I said.
No, they were satellites.
And it was my fault.
After the Russians hit one of ours, we agreed to hand over orbits and frequencies to each other.
I wrote the database.
Everything worked beautifully in the tests.
But the moment the tracker went online, every satellite with propulsion went into controlled deorbit. The rest shut down or exploded.
My daughter pinched me. “Make a wish.”
So, I did.
I wish I had checked my code again.

Straight Up

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If you ask a robot where home is, it usually points to its recharging station.
So when the Andersons’ new service droid pointed straight up, I assumed that it meant the attic.
After the survey of Oak Falls was complete, no other robot in my survey had an attic charging station.
Return to Washington?
No. Not yet.
I went back to the Andersons’ house and asked the robot again, but while we were outside.
It pointed up again.
That’s when the lights appeared in the sky.
“Where is home?” The robot asked.
It seems we have our profession in common.

Errors

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The error messages this system spits out are frustrating.
They are just a bunch of meaningless code.
“Can I get some meaningful error message that tells me what I did wrong?” I ask.
The developers say no. They are too busy getting rid of the bugs that cause the errors.
“In the meantime, I’d like to know what the errors mean.”
They shake their heads.
“How about some error messages that are even more meaningless, filled with profanity and racial epithets?”
The developers think I’m being silly.
So I grab one by the throat and give him a few examples.

Tie You Up In Knots

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I know my knots. I know every knot.
Though I may be old and blind, you can give me any rope and I can put any knot in it that you want me to put in it.
Hand me a rope with a knot in it, and I can tell you what kind it is in ten seconds.
This rope around my ankles, I know.
Same with the rope around my wrists.
The one around my neck is another matter, though. Give me a minute on that.
Pull on them all you want – all my secrets will die with me.

Poseidon

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None of the other Poseidon The Sea Gods at water parks had problems, but then, they were just actors.
The One True Poseidon lay on the couch, shaking.
“The pills aren’t working,” he tells his analyst. “Neptune came out during my act at Sea World again.”
“What happened?” asked Dr. Moggs.
“I speared a kid with my trident. The lawyers are erasing the tape and blaming the kid for leaning on the rail.”
The doctor made notes as the once-mighty sea god moaned in agony, mumbling “Get out of my head” and rocking back and forth like a terrified child.