Canadian Politics Today

This week I noticed a high-pitched whining sound around the office, and I thought something might be wrong, but it turned out it was just Ted Technician back from vacation.  It was so relaxing while he was away.

Production Chief Pete's replacement quit before he even started, so we're kind of in a jam.  We've got another guy lined up, but Pete is leaving soon and the new guy won't be here in time to train with him.

Spending more time working with Engineer Ed has been interesting.  He is giving me bite-sized tasks that I can do for him while he works on other things. I have noticed that he has some sort of quality that makes people want to suck up to him. I'm not sure exactly what it is, but people just seem to want to make him happy. I am not exactly sure why. My own Minions seem to suck up to him more than they suck up to me, which sort of annoys me.  I think part of it is that they're used to me complaining about them, whereas if Ed comes to the Minion Cage to talk to them in person it means they've **** up big time and they feel they're in trouble.  Pete and I have drilled into their tiny brains that wasting Ed's time by screwing up is a bad thing.  Also it could be that like me they suspect that beneath Ed's calm exterior is an axe-murderer who could snap, and they don't want to be the first dismembered corpse in his freezer. (although I suspect that honor is reserved for Ted.)  But there's more.  They seem to want his approval. They seem to want to score brownie-points with him.  Alpha Minion will go to him with a check-list of things that he doesn't really need to check over. Beta Minion will go to him to ask the dumbest questions, sometimes about stuff like the coffee machine making weird sounds. Why does she need to ask him about the coffee machine making weird sounds?  I don't get it. He's okay with people, but not in a way that ought to make the Minions want to suck up to him.  I feel somewhat agitated about this. They're my Minions, they should be sucking up to me.


I met the most fascinating woman last night at the bar.  She works at some sort of a web thing. I asked what she did there, and she sort of low-key mentioned that she's the CEO. I cyber-stalked her when I got home and discovered she's also a published photographer. She's heterosexual... she mentioned her boyfriend several times while we were chatting. When people do that it sometimes makes me feel self-conscious... like, did she mention that specifically to let me know that she's not into me? If she did, why did she feel she had to? Did I give the impression that I was into her?  I totally was, but I wasn't trying to pick her up.  I still feel all tingly from talking with her, even 24 hours later.



 -k