a little more me in my monitor...
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Below are the 10 most recent journal entries recorded in the "Dan Johnson" journal:[<< Previous 10 entries]
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02:00 pm
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UNEMPLOYMENT ATTACK!!!
You awaken in a dimly lit basement. The air is chilly. You can hear the soft hum of a computer. You have a slight headache.
There are exits to the NORTH and WEST.
What will you do?
> LOOK BASEMENT
You are surrounded by brown wainscoting and dragon figurines. There are two TVs and a couch aside from the bed where you are laying. There is a DIET PEPSI MAX and a BOTTLE OF PILLS on the nightstand.
> LOOK PILLS
It is a HALF FULL BOTTLE OF EXTRA STRENGTH ASPIRIN.
> TAKE PILLS
You swallow a few pills. They taste awful and stick in your throat.
> TAKE PILLS WITH PEPSI
The delicious taste of flat, room-temperature cola covers the bitterness and soothes your throat. Your headache begins to feel better. There is a SMALL PERSON here.
> LOOK PERSON
It appears to be a BLOND GIRL of about 3 years old. She is wearing a fancy dress and purple sweatpants. She is repeatedly climbing in and out of a laundry hamper near the bed.
> TURN ON TV
There are 2 TVs. Which one do you want to turn on.
> TURN ON BIG TV
The cathode ray tube takes a moment warming up before revealing a show about remodeling homes to increase their sale price. The BLOND GIRL is holding a CELLULAR PHONE.
> GET PHONE
The BLOND GIRL shouts that the PHONE is hers and attacks. You take 1 point of damage.
> USE PEPSI ON BLOND GIRL
You hand the half-empty can of soda to the BLOND GIRL. BLOND GIRL has dropped a CELLULAR PHONE.
> GET PHONE
You take the phone. It reads 10:14am. A green light is flashing.
> EQUIP PANTS
You do not have a PANTS
> LOOK HAMPER
Beneath the BLOND GIRL, you spy SOCIALLY ACCEPTABLE PAJAMAS and UNWASHED SLACKS.
> GET SLACKS, EQUIP SLACKS
You pull on the same pants you've been wearing for five days.
> INVENTORY
In your pockets, you find one IPOD VIDEO, a BLACK WALLET, a CELL PHONE, a CAR KEYS, a BIC LIGHTER, 3 CIGARETTE COUPONS.
You have $1.77
You have 19 hit points
You have 0 jobs
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08:53 pm
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I'm always home; I'm uncool.
I had to reinstall Vista last week because of a crippling virus, or pile of viruses, depending which of the malware scrubbers you believe. There are upsides and downsides to this. The downside is that I lost whatever it is that I forgot to back up. So far, the only thing that I've realized that I forgot was my archived instant messenger logs from the past couple of years.
The other downside is that the whole process is kind of a lengthy ordeal, but that small downside is outweighed by the feeling of accomplishment at the clean, fresh desktop that comes at the end of the fight.
It also means I had the opportunity to search through untold piles of archived CDs from the past several years.
2005. Those were the days. I was tall in a tiny car, Jill lived here, apparently. Joe was a sweaty hippy.
Jacquie is photographically over-represented by a considerable margin compared with her tenure. I'm trying to correct this by bringing my camera more places, without becoming one of those people who's always taking your picture when you're trying to be drunk and unattractive.
I've got about two potential employers to call tomorrow about jobs, and one past employer about where they might have sent my W-2.
Tax Return BBQ season approaches.
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11:28 pm
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Leftovers
Kristina is the entirety of my friends page right now. I am certainly not blameless, but I'm disappointed to see that the Live Journal Renaissance was so short-lived.
I'm not going to make an effort to construct an omnibus of my last few weeks; it would be an insult to you, to me, and to the last few weeks. I will, however, upload pictures from Kristina's delightful Food Party and post them here.
I would also like to say, for the record, that the party was much more fun than this picture makes it look.
Anyhow, that was fun. New Years went delightfully as well, thanks to the Harris' gracious hosting. Someone might mention to them that I'll be needing a place for the Tax Return Barbecue as well.
My boss told me today, near the beginning of my shift, that given my stunning inability to sell the things they're paying me to sell, they would be firing me soon, unless I'd prefer to resign. The difference being, beyond the comforting semantics, that I'd be eligible to apply to a customer service position when they post for it sometime in the next month or so. That's a comforting light at the end of the unemployment tunnel.
I'm pretty confident, in the meantime, that I should be on the short list of candidates for a job I applied for earlier this week, one that would place me in the exciting and fast-paced world of solid waste management, and thereby, organized crime.
The point, dear Internet, is that I don't have to work this Saturday, and if anyone would like to see me Friday night, they should tell me so sometime between now and then.
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03:31 pm
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"Mr. Feinberg, you've been the highlight of my day."
The food party was awesome, but until I get my camera back from Jim and Kristina's house, an update about it would be lacking in substance.
I got tapped to guest host Triviasco yesterday. None of you showed up, but you don't need to feel bad, because literally no one else did, either. Around 10:30, the manager told me that he'd cover my drinks thus far and I was free to go. The substitute bar tender does not make as good an old fashioned as the normal Wednesday night guy.
I'm at work. The decision to have us work on Christmas Eve seems questionable, but since the man responsible for the decision is far, far away from here, presumably gettin' his wassail on with friends and loved ones, there's no turning back now. The customers to whom I've spoken today express little empathy for my having to work, though they describe the fact that we're calling today as "just awful," "ridiculous," and "retarded." The one exception, noted above in the update title, seemed more than happy to discuss his accounts at length.
My drive to work today was spent listening to the MPR meteorologist telling listeners that any travel today would be best completed by 3pm. I'm off work in an hour with about 90 minutes of driving ahead.
On Dasher, on Dancer...
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11:12 pm
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Time to settle.
I've been at my job a month now, and I've been seated at four different desks. I've also had to print a document four times and, by coincidence, each time was at a different computer, requiring four separate installations of a network printer, which, for reasons clear only to people that chose their college majors much more wisely than me, is a ridiculous ordeal at my new workplace.
I seem to be settled, finally, at my current desk. Settled, at least, if my inscrutable inability to convince people to purchase credit and deposit products evaporates, soon. Otherwise, I'll return to being "settled" at the desk in my parents' basement where I'm sitting at the moment. It's comforting to note that the other new banker from my training class is trailing my record of two sales in about two weeks by a margin of two sales. Our supervisor told us that we should make an effort to reach out to the bankers around us for help, though she did this the same day that she moved both of our desks to a corner of the cubicle row largely sequestered from the other bankers.
The other guy from my training class is, as mentioned earlier, a mumbly young man, so he's not the best of company between calls. I've noticed that, presumably to compensate for his low volume, he makes a wide variety of bizarre hand motions while he's talking, many of which don't mean what he seems to think they do. One wonders if perhaps he's from St. Cloud.
He paused between calls today to remark that the woman to whom he had just spoken seemed to have a remarkable amount of money for someone who listed their occupation as "none."
I suggested that perhaps she was married to a rich guy and didn't have to work. He responded by flailing the ruler he keeps at his desk above his head in a threatening manner and said, "No, not 'none'..." I realized quickly from the gesture what he meant, despite his failure to simply spell the word, "...occupation: nun!"
St. Cloud, maybe. Catholic for sure.
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01:00 am
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If you want to impress your boss, you go in there, and you do mediocre work. Half-heartedly.
I did the math today and realized that I've been averaging an intake of about 1200 calories on days that I work. Now, it's also assuredly worth noting that, aside from trudging up and down an icy hill between work and my car, the greatest physical exertion of my workday comes from the sticky space bar on my keyboard. It's further worth noting that no part of my job seems to require the space bar.
Starting my workday at 12:30pm, even with a commute that, to be safe, begins at 11:30, makes for a weird day. There doesn't seem to be any real usable time between when I wake up and when I have to leave for work, but there doesn't seem to be any after work either. The reality, of course, is that there are few, if any productive things I would be doing after work that didn't involve me sitting at my computer like I am now, but the illusion of a difference is impressive.
I've spent a few hours the past week or so working on my cookbook with various sitcoms NetFlixing in the background. I guess that's as productive as anything else I could be doing. I should probably go to sleep now, since I have only one day left to shift my sleep schedule from waking up between 10 and 11 every day and having to be up around 7:30am on Saturday.
I'm not that impressed with this entry. Instead of commenting on it, tell me what I should make and bring to Kristina's Food Party on Tuesday. Keep in mind that I have a fair to adequate budget, but mad skills, and the whole day off of work.
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11:27 am
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Stopping for Donuts.
Ian invited us to Haiku Jim's birthday party on Friday. I say "us" because it seems like Ian lobbed the invitation in the general direction of everyone I know, so I operated under the assumption that it extended to everyone with whom I would normally have been with at Mortimer's that night. The party turned out to be high on the list of the most fun things I've ever done in Robinsdale.
I was chosen to be the driver for the night's excursion, owing no doubt to both the fact that my car both runs and holds four people, and the fact that I had some vague idea of where Robinsdale is. I picked up Noah, then Kristina, then Stevie. Those of you with some basic knowledge of geography might question that order, particularly given that my starting point Friday night was my job in South St. Paul.
As it happens, Stevie was at work until 9, but Kristina prefers to be out of the house for the evening by 8pm, if at all. Both Kristina and Noah enjoy a car ride as much as a pair of Springer Spaniels, so, with the promise to Kristina that we could stop at the gas station for a doughnut, they accompanied me for the drive to Apple Valley.
It turned out that Kristina wanted the option of a doughnut more than an actual doughnut, so my stop at the gas station was just to take out money and shake my fist at the "Out of Order" sign on the men's room door. We made it to Stevie's without incident and thankfully found the rest room there to be in working order.
Haiku Jim has a lovely home. There's something about first ring suburbs that, as a child of the third ring and a young adult of the city proper, has always made me uneasy, but both home and hood seem very pleasant. The snowbanks along the sidewalk were lined with grainbelt bottles when we walked up, greatly allaying my fears about Noah getting the address correct.
Having never attended one of H-Jim's b-days before, I hadn't realized that the celebration serves the same function in relation to Christmas that Jill's birthday always served to Thanksgiving. The house was filled with yuletide cheer in the form of decorations and all manner of subpar animation. That girl whose name I can never remember brought a cake garnished with airplane booze. It was delicious. The cake moreso than the ounce of Windsor, but I've never been one to look a gift bottle in the label.
Around 1, Ian felt that the party was beginning to stale slightly following recent departures and announced that he was leading a trip to the VFW a few blocks away. Or, at least, he was leading a trip to my car which would then be directed to the VFW. It's good to have a car that seats six again, even if it takes a severe cold snap to make it a good idea.
We arrived at the VFW to find the door locked. The woman inside told Ian that they closed at 1 and his haggling did nothing to change her mind. The VFW is, however, right next door to a place called The St. Petersburg Vodka Bar, no doubt the source of the persistent rumors of the Robinsdale VFW being a hangout for Russian organized crime. I saw no concrete evidence that any of the native Russian speakers present were criminals, organized or otherwise, but the language has a certain phonoaesthetic tone that makes its speakers seem like secretive ne'er-do-wells. It seems unfair, but the Germans and the Klingons undoubtedly have it worse.
Ian laid down a generous tab for the brave few who ventured upstairs with him (despite yet another door sign listing closing time at 1am), and proceeded to fund a round of White Russians (being the only winter-appropriate drink we could think of that's vodka-based.) We left at last call, though few of the patrons that were present when we arrived appeared to do so. It seems as though, since the place was ostensibly closed when we arrived, "last call" was more or less their way of asking us to leave.
We returned to Jim's, but it wasn't too much later that Kristina's interest in remaining awake began to wane, and both Stevie and Noah's ability to do so was draining away pretty rapidly as well.
Stevie and I were up a bit before noon, and still managed to eat two meals before our 4pm dinner resveration at the Elk's Lodge in Brooklyn Park. We met my sister and grandma for a lutefisk and meatball buffet. We were seated at a table with an elderly couple and an aging queen from Minneapolis. They were, one and all, delightful company. Lutefisk, with apologies to my heritage, not far from what you've heard. The taste is actually pretty pleasant, but the texture is more than a little confusing, if not entirely offputting. It, like most foods, is improved with cream sauce and melted butter, though it seems to absorb the flavor of both salt and pepper at a rate that makes me seriously question the chemistry at work.
The meatballs were delicious, and the meal came with a daunting tray of cookies at the end. Worth every penny, even if I'm not actually sure what The Elks are going to spend my money doing. I hope it's cookie-related.
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02:38 pm
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Sonic Economics
Apparently they're letting meout of work early today. I say "letting," but the reality of the situation is that they're kicking me out at 7. Evidently "we have to maintain consistency and bankers only work 38 hours a week." I pointed out that I worked 40 last week, and was told that's "the norm for training." I felt it undiplomatic to point out that I was still training on Monday, that training was three weeks long, and that I only received one 40-hour check.
I don't mind leaving early (though having to take my half-hour unpaid lunchbreak an hour from the end of my six hour day seems inconvenient.) My only actual objection is that it seems arbitrary. I have a lifelong crusade against underexplained rules. Now, however, is not the time. My luck hasn't been good enough to make any actual complaints about the source of a steady paycheck.
I realized this week, one of the things that makes this job seem strange, is that, unlike any other call center where I've worked, there's no music. No radios at desks, no piped in KS95, no corporate satellite holiday elevator music (literally, not even on the elevator.)
It's a little disconcerting by itself, but it's made moreso by my brain filling the silence with a loop of Pink Floyd's "Money" for eight hours a day.
I wish I had a giant, unwieldy adding machine at my desk.
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11:30 pm
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Let it tow, let it tow, let it tow.
We lost at trivia again. The team of Redhead and Boring Guy seems to be an unstoppable trivia machine. Though, to be fair, we circled the wrong category as our bonus and lost by one point as a result, so it's possible that we're just off our game. Or else, since trivia is on payday, I've made peace with the idea that sometimes beer costs money.
There were only three teams, owing no doubt to the awful weather. I parked directly in front of Luce, which, it turns out, is a snow emergency route. When that fact was pointed out to me, I suppose I could have moved my car, but since both Ian and the Nadeaus had parked on the street as well, we discussed the matter and decided that we'd sit by the window. Joe Mahon spent his night unbespectabled and periodically peaking over the artificial plant in the window sill to shout indignant admonitions to whatever passing vehicle looked vaguely like a tow-truck at any given moment. Ian briefly adjourned his trivia duties at one point in the second round to lead a charge out the door to find two tow trucks outside. It turned out that one was laden with unfortunate vehicles ruined by the icy grip of inertia and the other was driven by a guy who wanted pizza and didn't care about the snow emergency, so we went back inside. All in all, the nightlong game of Red Hands against municipal parking enforcement proved to be more exciting than trivia has been for some months. Also, the Tuna Caliente noodle salad is delicious.
I was reminded today that, while I've worked in various phone sales jobs for a combined six or seven years, I am a bizarrely ineffective salesman. I already sold a credit card my first day, and I have a callback tomorrow that's almost certainly going to be another. That's better than a lot of people in my training class are doing, but it's worth noting that my learning curve is steeper than the average temp agency ne'er-do-well, so I might have reached my sub-par peak already. I have high hopes, but I'm not canceling my weekly CareerBuilder e-mail either.
Tonight's NBC lineup went four for four toward yuletide cheer instead of snide cynicism. On behalf of everyone who's had a rough couple of weeks, I applaud them for it.
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05:55 pm
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Don't talk to me about the cruelest month.
This is a silly place to live a lot of the time. It took me almost an hour to get home from work last night, which actually isn't that bad when you consider that, under the best of circumstances, it takes a shade over 40 minutes. Just the same, the drive was unpleasant enough to make up for its comparative brevity. I know it's trite to insist that everyone forgets how to drive in the snow, and that's why the first snow storm is always terrible. I'm going to assume, instead, that no one ever learns how to drive in the snow, and that later in the season, everyone just values their own lives less, so we just don't notice the terrible driving. If winter in Minnesota lasted a month longer, we'd all be driving everywhere at top speed with our eyes closed, just hoping the inevitable fiery wreck would be warm for a little while.
I wore by boots to work today, having, in a rare moment of responsible foresight, brought them in from the trunk of my car last night, for the first time since moving back to Champlin. The new Regular Shoes I bought online hadn't yet arrived, and I have every confidence that my Chucks would have meant my demise trying to get up the hill to work.
I've noticed that the view from my desk is one of the nicest in my entire employment history. Being Hennepin County born and raised, I've always considered the St. Paul skyline to be unremarkable at best when compared to its taller, better dressed twin. It occurred to me that I only ever notice it from the north, though. From the south end of the Robert Street bridge, however, it's really an impressive expanse of grimy cold war era brutalism. Wikipedia that if you think I'm making up words to make fun of architecture.
I got paid today. Ordinarily, I'd make a Facebook post saying that we should go to Trivia. I don't actually care what we do, as it happens, and Facebook is blocked at work, so I guess I'll just say that you should call me around 9.
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