The Annual Post.
There really has been quite a lot going on since I last posted. Or, I suppose, very little going on, depending on how you look at it.
You see, around February of last year the building tranlocation company I was working for had a little bit of a software malfunction. They were doing maintenance work on the transference equipment one evening and… Well I surmise somebody was trying to work on the phasing machine while it was on.
So I came to work one morning to find the entire building and most of the staff (including the Boss) half-phased into an alternate reality.
Half-phased looks like a terrible place to get stuck. You can see everything and hear fairly well, but you don’t have much effect on the real world. It took them six months to fix the problem (it’s hard to get half-phased repair parts), and needless to say, they lost business really quickly. It’s hard for the bank to cash your checks when they’re not fully tangible.
So, I’ve been kicking around for most of 2010 trying to find a new job. Playing a lot of H&H with my friends.
(Incidentally, that’s Humans & Hallways, if you’ve never played. One player, the Hall Master, comes up with imaginary scenarios and the other players invent characters who they use to solve the scenario puzzles in the most logical way. All the characters are mundane humans, so it’s all very cerebral.)
But as 2011 starts, I do finally have a job again. I’m a Data Sifter for the Internal Gifting Service. Now, if you know me, you may find that surprising. I tend to be pretty vocal about my distaste for the entire business of Gifting. I’ve put together a lot of evidence over the years that it’s a branch of WDI. But it is challenging work, I’ll give them that.
Granted, it doesn’t take an empath to fill out gifting papers, but everyone comes in with some idea of the gifts they think they should receive, and they are invariably both incorrect and disappointed. Nobody thinks they should be the ones doing the gifting, though some become rather resigned to it after a few years. An understanding of how people tick is really useful for coming away from that kind of conversation with all my fingers and toes, and making sure they come out of it with as many fingers and toes as is legally allowable.
So now I spend all day trying to get people to tell the truth about their Situation Indicators so that I can figure their Need Quotient (a hilarious thing to try to reduce to numbers, but WDI has never been terribly logical – just complicated). Then, depending on what gift the IGS computer decides the customer deserves to get or give, I get to convince them either that they are receiving what they should or that they really do have enough to give something. All poppycock, of course, but it pays.
No, my political leanings haven’t changed. I’m working with TCAS organizing a full scale rebellion against the gifting service. He occasionally works as our receptionist. Actually, I think he may be working as a receptionist in several if the IGS offices at the same time. Should be interesting when he kicks it into gear but I doubt it will be this season, so I should probably be looking for a summer job.
Maybe I can make some money playing H&H.
