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Jun. 16th, 2006 07:18 pmThe truck cost less than I was worried it might have. I needed new shoes and related hardware, new drums (the old ones were too thin to refinish), and new brake cylinders. The cause of the leaking brake fluid, it would seem, was a blown wheel cylinder. Altogether, they told me when they called me at work on Thursday, it was going to run about $360. When Andrea picked it up, the figure had risen to about $400; when they were replacing the cylinders, the brake line "disintegrated" in the mechanic's hand. That's definitely not a good thing.
So, the truck is up and running. Not only that, but the brakes are behaving much more reassuringly than they were previously. Having a mechanic that I know through personal, friend, and family experience that I can trust is a huge relief to me.
Thursday was Serin's last day at work with my company for the moment, which is a bit saddening. It was a really nice thing to ride that hour back and forth with another friend, even though I have to admit that I often found myself sleeping one way or the other. We even had the chance to talk about hair and skirts and other such things once or twice when, for whatever reason, Evil Bob couldn't make it and it was just the two of us riding down. (I've known Evil Bob for my entire conscious life and he's a good person who I like a great deal, but having that sort of discussion with him around would probably not be the most prudent choice I could make.)
Serin was let go for financial reasons. I really don't think that it's that we don't have money; it's just a numbers game. One quarter we have to spend more on capital expense, another quarter we have to spend more on recurring expenses; it's all being run by the bean counters. Another example of this is our conference calling system. We were looking at outsourcing our conference calls for a while and went as far as getting some quotes on it. Then, a financial decision came down; we needed to spend more money on hardware and less on services to satisfy some quirk of corporate economics, and so we're now looking at expanding our internal system. Rather than honestly deciding which solution will be better for our business in the long run, they throw money wherever it will make the books look the best. At least, that's my impression of it. And it frustrates my manager as much as it does us, but I suppose there's not much to be done. I know we're not going to have enough people, but we'll just have to wait until that becomes painfully clear enough that someone budgets for more of us.
Not a great deal else is going on at the moment. I have a bunch more hardware from work that I'm going to have to sort through. In fact, I'm going back down to work bright and early tomorrow morning (with permission from my team lead of course) to pick up a few more things and scavenge for parts. The deal is that the great big pile of outdated hardware that we were going to sort through and resell internally is now just being disposed of. Without Serin with us, my manager has let our department VP know that we just don't have the staff to deal with any kind of resale program. We're going to scrap the stuff, and I'm certainly not going to miss my chance to scrounge first.
I feel so strange having written so much about this corporate job that I have. I continue to have very frequent moments of thinking to myself how odd it is that I find myself in this sort of position, and that, for the most part, I'm managing to fit myself into it. I suspect I always will. I'll always have that bit of myself that was once too afraid of talking to people to go into a store by myself, knowing that I would have to deal with the person behind the counter. To tell the truth, there are moments, from time to time, that that aspect of myself makes itself very much known. And that's ok. The better I know myself, the better I can deal with things outside. if I know when things are too much for me, I can also know that much better when they're not.
It looks like![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
wooisme has a few things planned out for tomorrow that we'll be going to. There's a party at anarchist_nomad's place since he's back from England for the weekend, so that should be fun. On Sunday, Moira and I are getting together with my grandparents for lunch: they sent me a really sweet card for my birthday in November that I hadn't even opened until earlier this week, and I just feel really bad about not seeing them more. I'd really like to get to know them better than I have, so lunch shoud be good.
Maybe I'll clean up some more too if I can find time. The nice clean computer room makes me really happy; now I want my library organized. Maybe I'll actually be able to find all my books and get the rest of them into Moira's and my Librarything account!
For tonight, I'm going to see if Todd and Serin would like to come by for geeking and animè, but the phone number I have for them doesn't work. If either of you see this tonight, please feel free to give me a call; I emailed Serin with my number in case you need it.
So, the truck is up and running. Not only that, but the brakes are behaving much more reassuringly than they were previously. Having a mechanic that I know through personal, friend, and family experience that I can trust is a huge relief to me.
Thursday was Serin's last day at work with my company for the moment, which is a bit saddening. It was a really nice thing to ride that hour back and forth with another friend, even though I have to admit that I often found myself sleeping one way or the other. We even had the chance to talk about hair and skirts and other such things once or twice when, for whatever reason, Evil Bob couldn't make it and it was just the two of us riding down. (I've known Evil Bob for my entire conscious life and he's a good person who I like a great deal, but having that sort of discussion with him around would probably not be the most prudent choice I could make.)
Serin was let go for financial reasons. I really don't think that it's that we don't have money; it's just a numbers game. One quarter we have to spend more on capital expense, another quarter we have to spend more on recurring expenses; it's all being run by the bean counters. Another example of this is our conference calling system. We were looking at outsourcing our conference calls for a while and went as far as getting some quotes on it. Then, a financial decision came down; we needed to spend more money on hardware and less on services to satisfy some quirk of corporate economics, and so we're now looking at expanding our internal system. Rather than honestly deciding which solution will be better for our business in the long run, they throw money wherever it will make the books look the best. At least, that's my impression of it. And it frustrates my manager as much as it does us, but I suppose there's not much to be done. I know we're not going to have enough people, but we'll just have to wait until that becomes painfully clear enough that someone budgets for more of us.
Not a great deal else is going on at the moment. I have a bunch more hardware from work that I'm going to have to sort through. In fact, I'm going back down to work bright and early tomorrow morning (with permission from my team lead of course) to pick up a few more things and scavenge for parts. The deal is that the great big pile of outdated hardware that we were going to sort through and resell internally is now just being disposed of. Without Serin with us, my manager has let our department VP know that we just don't have the staff to deal with any kind of resale program. We're going to scrap the stuff, and I'm certainly not going to miss my chance to scrounge first.
I feel so strange having written so much about this corporate job that I have. I continue to have very frequent moments of thinking to myself how odd it is that I find myself in this sort of position, and that, for the most part, I'm managing to fit myself into it. I suspect I always will. I'll always have that bit of myself that was once too afraid of talking to people to go into a store by myself, knowing that I would have to deal with the person behind the counter. To tell the truth, there are moments, from time to time, that that aspect of myself makes itself very much known. And that's ok. The better I know myself, the better I can deal with things outside. if I know when things are too much for me, I can also know that much better when they're not.
It looks like
wooisme has a few things planned out for tomorrow that we'll be going to. There's a party at anarchist_nomad's place since he's back from England for the weekend, so that should be fun. On Sunday, Moira and I are getting together with my grandparents for lunch: they sent me a really sweet card for my birthday in November that I hadn't even opened until earlier this week, and I just feel really bad about not seeing them more. I'd really like to get to know them better than I have, so lunch shoud be good.Maybe I'll clean up some more too if I can find time. The nice clean computer room makes me really happy; now I want my library organized. Maybe I'll actually be able to find all my books and get the rest of them into Moira's and my Librarything account!
For tonight, I'm going to see if Todd and Serin would like to come by for geeking and animè, but the phone number I have for them doesn't work. If either of you see this tonight, please feel free to give me a call; I emailed Serin with my number in case you need it.
