Song of the Day: "Spies Like Us" by Paul McCartney

I'm feeling subversive today, hence the "Spies Like Us" reference. So another weekend wasted, more to go. The printing rep is on site today. All the things he promised us (digital photos, tagging of item numbers to automatically generate real time numeric indexing, etc.) have gone undone. And now it is my job.

But all is well ... becuase I've been given three of our non-English speaking warehouse workers to help me with the task. By teaching them to use Adobe software ... in two days ... and installing said software (illegally) on multiple machines ... so they can operate independently ... by helping build an exhaustive index for a 550 page catalog ... all through the cunning use of the Cntl+Y command!

Behold, I am Joe, God of Marketing Communications! Revel in the shimmering glow of my framed Masters Degree! Kneel before Joe!

I teach college students as an adjunct. It is fun, it is therapuetic, it is moderately interesting, it pays almost nothing (but still better than nothing). So I'm used to instructing others. But these ad hoc catalog folks look at me as if to say, "Pour quoi?". Acutally, they don't speak French ... but if they did, that is what they'd say ... and since I don't speak Spanish that is all you're getting. Get off my back, they're both Latin root languages ... so bite me.

But, seriously, this is a new challenge, one that makes no logical sense from any perspective. Now I know why the Minutemen are so damned cranky.

I'm not racist. I'm not elitist (okay, that is a damned lie). But if you are going to cede staff to a project should they at least know that a mouse isn't necessarily something that cats eat? Now, not only do I have to keep up with my work, I have to supervise a poorly trained, poorly selected group of individuals who quite literally don't understand what the outcome of their work should be.

So, how does this whole morass of idiocy (mine included) result in subversive behavior on my part? I trained these folks for an hour, spent another installing illegal copies of software. I then spent two hours applying for other jobs. I spent one hour setting my fantasy golf teams up for the Masters.

And I changed the setting on the thermostat for the CEO's office. Burn, baby, burn! Kneel before Joe!

I'm so money ...