THE DAILY DIVERSION

I get stuck working with some of the biggest idiots out there. Actually, it's not that they're idiots, they just can't follow simple directions. Unfortunately, this does not have anything to do with the people that work here in Memphis with me. We have people across the state that do my job also. We all work together and intermingle work.

For the project I've been working on, I had all of our people working together. This means that I had to coordinate each and every person and make sure they have plenty of work and completed their work on time. Neither of these things ended up being problems, as all of the work was turned in on time (which was a monumental feat in and of itself). However, the work that was turned in was less than stellar.

These guys all know what they are doing, since they've been doing it longer than I have (and longer than I've been alive in a few cases). However, when I make assignments to everyone, I set them up automated information, that is filled in with the pertinent information, that should not be changed under any circumstances. If that information is changed, then all of my reports that I have to do after the fact will not match back to my original information.

Well, I thought we "nipped this muthafucka in the bud" early on, after I noticed one of the guys putting different dollar figures on his final product than what came with the automated information. I talked to my boss and we specifically addressed it. Problem solved, right?

Not so fast my dear... Now, after everything has been turned in, I've started trying to build my reports from the information. Doing this means I have to take the information our assistant has gathered during the process. In the perfect scenario, everything would match back to the original stuff. Well, I've spent a day and a half double-checking the information, and I haven't been able to finish the first page (of SIX). Once I get everything corrected it shouldn't take much time to push out the rest of the reports. However, I can't even start on the reports until everything is corrected. It's just a vicious circle.

Anyway, I feel like I've wasted two working days, since I've gotten absolutely no where. I'm going to start from scratch tomorrow with our assistant and, hopefully, we can make some headway tomorrow. In the meantime, I'll work on formatting issues, which are few, and think about how this should be tackled.

I'm heading out shortly and I'm thinking about taking out my frustrations on NCAA College Football 2007 (season #3 of my Dynasty -- yes, back to back National Champions for The Fighting Irish) and a bottle of Crown Royal. Wish me luck!! I hope I win!

PS -- I'm hoping to get back to posting regularly here soon. I've actually been working my ass off (if you saw me you'd notice that I have no ass) lately, and I haven't been able to squeeze it in my working day. Once I'm done with this piece of shit (AKA "project") I'll have some free time to do the things I want to do. In the meantime, I'm still here in Memphis while all of my coworkers head to either San Diego, Seattle, or San Francisco for work. Yeah for me!