Welcome home?

Just returned home from a year in another foreign country, and this time guess what... I somehow got shingles, pulled my groin muscle and have spent my block leave in and out of the hospital! The Mrs. Is not happy, and I am certainly not happy. This sucks! On a lighter note, I am super happy to be back, and morphine is not all it is cracked up to be. Took two hits of that and one of some "Phenegran" to ease the pain and allow me to have a conversation.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

The Babysitters Club

I have discovered the greatest drawback to my current position. I am officially a glorified babysitter. I have a Soldier that is having some marital issues. I would say that "some" is an understatement, but I don't want to overdramatize the issues they are having.

In their defense, they were married very young due to an unplanned pregnancy. It would be a very touching story of high school sweethearts if you would stop telling the story once you hit about 5 months ago. It was about that time that their less than perfect existence together became even more tumultuous.

Fast forward a few weeks. I begin receiving phone calls from my Soldiers wife and mother-in-law. Apparently it is assumed that I can force all of my Soldiers to do anything that their pissed off relatives want them to. Apparently it is common knowledge that I listen less to the people that I serve with in the face of the enemy than I do their family members.. It is apparently expected that a spouse can call me and I will make the Soldier do the dishes, or vacuum the living room for them. I am so glad my wife missed that training, I can only guess how often she would have called someone to get me to sweep a floor or water her plants.

I wish I would have known about this apparently inherent responsibility. Getting phone calls from families that claim my Soldier has stopped upholding his financial and worse his paternal responsibilities. As I sit and unwillingly listen to the various voices on the other side of the line, all saying the same messages, just different words and voices, I realize that there is NOTHING I can do about any of this. My Soldier is truly not worthy of my support at this point. I am obligated to listen to all of the childish actions that my Soldier does and I am responsible to find ways to try and help him through this horrendous time in his life. I have NO desire to do any of this. I have no idea how to help him grow when EVERYTHING that I have tried to do has failed.

I don't know how to right this, nor do I truly care to right this. I just simply want to continue believing that people are generally good. This Soldier has made a habit of telling me what I want to hear, and going to his spouse and mother-in-law and telling them something TOTALLY different. How do I trust a person like this with my life, and the lives of my other Soldiers. I am upset with this Soldier, and I do not know how to correct this.

The most wonderful thing about this scenario is that whenever he messes up it is considered his Leader's fault. Never mind if you were even in the same city or state at the time of the incident.

This morning I received a phone call from a friend of this Soldiers wife. She was very quick to tell me how they had left my Soldier with his children last night because of how he was acting towards his wife yesterday. She shut up very quickly when I asked if she had an understanding of how many hours of another Soldiers life she and my Soldiers wife had wasted by doing that. My Soldier was scheduled to work last night, and since they left him with the kids, we had to call another Soldier who was planning a fun night out with friends to come in and work for his "Battle-buddy". Yeah, take that bitch, don't call me acting so fucking high and mighty, like my Soldier is the lONLY bad person in this ordeal. You are not as righteous as you think you are. No apology followed, no remorse was heard in her voice, in fact it was quite the opposite. It was as if she became defensive, that it was his fault for what they had done. Did I mention that my Soldier is in his VERY early 20's, and his wife EVEN YOUNGER?!

Times like this make me very happy that my wife has stuck with me for the past 12 years even without calling my superiors to try and get her way. 4 years left. I eagerly welcome the days that I sit longing for these types of issues again. I shall remember this post and remind myself of just how irritating this job is!

Update. Last night I received a phone call that that Soldier and his wife had a fight, and both were being charged by the police. SURPRISE SURPRISE SURPRISE!!! I am glad I am on pass this weekend, time for someone else to do the babysitting.


- Posted from my iPhone

Geek points galore!!!

I am currently typing this post on my wireless keyboard that is linked to my iPhone via bluetooth, while sitting in the office during lunch. Yeah, I will be wearing the "Geek Inside" shirt this weekend and actually living up to it! I have been using it to type text messages and send them to people. In this new immense building that our unit moved into, AT&T gives me NO signal unless my phone is docked in my radio thingy, hence typing on a keyboard and tapping the screen to send. My response time for even this longest of texts has been reduced dramatically!!! My Soldiers have even commented on how GEEKY this is, and I relish the fact!!

I love MACs!!!


- Posted from my iPhone

Microhelp

I am a die hard MAC lover, through and through. The ONLY 2 reasons I deal with Microsoft at all is due to work, and my XBOX. I am starting to rethink one of those uses entirely. I am locked out of my hotmail account, which inadvertently causes an issue with my XBOX live account. I have done some crap online to try resolving the issue, but that has done little more than piss me off.

I wanted to call Microsoft support on the phone but of course they don't list the fucking number ANYWHERE. I did however find a number on the XBOX live support site. I called them. The woman I spoke to was great. She tried everything she could think of. Alas, her ideas were also doomed to fail. She did however have the phone number to Microsoft support. So I called. Guess what!! They have an automated system that doesn't listen for shit! That should have given me a clue, but no, I ignored it. So, after about 10 minutes of touch pad navigation through the verbal maze of misery I finally get transferred to a live person.... Presumably in a third world country who apparently studied English for a few days.

As I am not trying to come across as an ass, I will just divulge my half of the conversation...

Hello (spell last name 3 times)
(spell first name 2 times + 1 time phonetically)
I need to unlock my account
No, that isn't what I said. I need to UNLOCK my account.
Yes I did all that online already... Yes I did. I did that already. Yes I did that too... No just unlock it... I already made a new account... No, I need to get into my old account to link my XBOX account to my new account... Yes I told you I did that... Fine, I am going back to that website... See I did this already... What do you mean you can't verify my identity?... I'll hear from a supervisor in the next 24 hours?
-holding breath-


For you being so ABSOLUTELY UNHELPFUL subtract 10 points!

I loathe Microsoft!!! I will be so happy when I can amputate that word and system from my life!


- Posted from my iPhone

Autobots or Decepticons or Autobots... Whoever, Roll Out!!!

We went to see Transformers: Dark of the Moon last weekend, and we saw this dude!  Seriously guy, you are sporting the haircut of the movie you are going to see?  DON'T BE THAT GUY!  P.S. He had the Autobot symbol on the other side of his head.  Playing both sides huh?!! Seems like a trend....  Subtract 20 geek points!  10 points for each symbol.

Back to school

With the new school year upon us, I have an interesting empathy with the boys this time around. I will be heading to school the same day they do this year. I will be going to a school that is essentially the next level above the one I instructed for two years.

Although it is not my "first rodeo". I still find myself having some of the same feelings that I had so many years ago. Almost like I am excited about the possibilities, but at the same time nervous about the unknown. Fortunately my school will only last 2 months. Of course the hours will be a bit longer than the kiddos, but I am sure that I will have the same calibre of social misfits in my class.

That's really the one thing that I found so funny while instructing. My students were all somewhere between 23 and 45 years old (27 was the average age), yet they all acted like children when put together. You get the same social classes that existed in high school. That's probably why I like this song so much.

Does this sound like anyone you know?

Random voice: "How's your iPhone? Mine sucks, I am having tons of problems with it. It's slow as shit."

Voice of reason: "Have you updated the firmware, or even rebooted it...ever?"

Random voice: "HUH???!!!"

Voice of reason: "Nothing, it was a joke." (Under breath: ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS?)

As a bit of a spouse labled "Techie", please if you know anyone that fits this description, please talk them out of any future purchases of anything with buttons, and powered by electricity.

If you don't, dont say I didn't warn you!!!

-UPDATE-

I understand that this sounds a bit "ruthless", so let me explain. Random voice has had the iPhone for almost 2 full years now. Voice of Reason has explained all of this to random on at least 5 different occassions, each time Random looks like a deer in the headlights...

Random has also called Reason to be "walked-through" the updating process. Reason obliged. This phone call was on the weekend, and Random just happens to be a person that has a "Super?visory" role over Reason. I chalk this up to a case of, if you CAN'T understand it after it is explained, demonstrated, and performed with you, FORGET IT!!!

P.S. Here is Random's actual signature block... NOTE THE QUOTE AT THE END!!!!!

V/R,
(rank) Random
(title)
e-mail: Random
(address)
"Tell me and I forget; show me and I remember; involve me and I understand."

Additional "Doody" (like poop get-it???) ;)

In my profession we have these things called "additional duties" that are not really what you do on a daily basis, but is other shit that you may or may not be trained for and are most assuredly held responsible for. Basically it is something that needs to be done, that no one wants to do, and we can't afford to hire some extra schmo to do this job.

My favorite "additional duty" is supply. Yes this thing that I don't really do everyday is basically all I have done for the past few days of work. Every morning someone decides they need a new pen, then about 3 hours later someone needs a paper clip, then someone fucks me all up asking for shit that I have never heard of, I can't think of what it was she said right now, but turns out it was a stand for her computer monitor. (Did you know you can adjust the height with the stand it came with?) "Oh yes, I just like the space it gives me under the monitor (to pile more non-work related shit into my cube!!!!!)

Now supply is an entirely different profession than what I am trained in and the guy that handed me the reigns of this ball of shit had NO clue how to account for things, like, he didn't even have the right serial numbers on stuff. I know, I know, just let me rant, or stop reading...

So today, I get tasked with the joyous chore of unfucking these 3 computers. Don't ask what is wrong with them, they were put in a closet, and that is all I know about them. Well first thing first let me see who they belong to...wait, I don't have a record of those serial numbers...WTF!!!??? How the fuck does this happen? "Well do you have "Jerry's" (actual name withheld to ensure your plausible deniability) phone number? Call him and see what the deal was with them." My reply (in my head of course) "You fucking call him! I am not calling this chode in NY to find out why he didn't do something else that he should have."

2 hours later I found out that they were supposed to be turned in a year ago. ( I took over from this guy 2 months ago) Oh by the way, you will have to type a memo stating the reason they did not get turned in when they were supposed to. Can I say "shithead", "asshole", "ass-munching rim job", "ass-clown", or even just plain "fuck stick" in a memo?

Are you serious??!!!

Today the guy that sits across from me came back to work after being gone since mid December. The guy is nice and all, but I swear, all he talks about is football. He is a huge cowboys fan, like the kind of guy that would do something like this if there was a "Cowboy" truck. I forgot how annoying his tirades could be!

"I don't want the Steelers to win, because I don't want them to get 6 rings before the Cowboys do."

Seriously dude?! Is it that important to you? I totally understand loving your team but this guy never shuts up about his team. Each loss was chalked up to poor calls by the officiating crew or the other team cheating somehow. Nothing was fair if they lost. 

I am sure you can understand how irritating this might get after an entire season.  I just hope he doesn't start watching NASCAR..."oh look there making another left turn!!!"  (start at 1:00 mark and watch till you wanna stop.)

Objects in the rear view

It all makes sense. Why do I hate tailgaters and speed demons and stupid drivers so much? Well today I figured it out. When we redeployed from Iraq, my gunner was on leave and was killed in a car accident. He was with 2 of his friends and his fiancé going through an intersection when they were t-boned by a drunk driver who ran a red light. Now this kid was hit by 6 IEDs in the year prior and lived through every one. Only to be killed in his home town by some drunk fuck?!!!  

When we redeployed from Afghanistan, my best friend and I both moved to where I am now. Several (like 5) months after we got here, he was killed in a car accident. Unfortunately I can't blame a drunk though, because he was sober. He was just driving too fast. So 2 people that I have gone to combat with; both made it home, only to be killed at home by stupidity. 

So if you are ever tailgating someone and they turn around and look you in the eye and mouth the words "what the fuck".... nice to meet you!