4:30 p.m.

• So my ex-workplace had its May quarterly board meeting, and I found out from the people I still keep in touch with over there something interesting. It is now taking six people to do my job.

One person to actually step in to my job title.

My idiot boss who is showing the above person how to operate Quark, something she said she was proficient in during her interview. My one ex-coworker told me that when she started she asked why you had to make a box for everything. (Quark users will get the joke.) Oh, and she doesn't know how do do any of the other office software she insisted she knew.

Two people to do data-entry/editing work.

One person to do special projects.

One person to work on the web site. I should point out that the only thing which has been updated in the past four months is a link on the front page taken down that directed someone to the site’s latest updates. Seeing there hasn’t been an update since January 18, I find it odd that they would remove this.

I could be greedy and add another person to stuff envelopes, but I’m sure that could be delegated to the three people doing data entry/editing/special projects. Oh, and did I mention this person gets almost one-third more money starting out than what I did? (Hell, she makes more now than I did after 4+ years.) I’m not going to hate on her for that – in fact, I say good job. When it comes to money, you’re only paid as much as you can get. Actually, the one thing about my old job I didn’t really bitch about was the pay. I figure if I wanted more I’d go somewhere else. What did piss me off though was the extra job duties heaved onto me without any additional compensation. When you start a job and your extra responsibilities start becoming more important than the reason you were hired in the first place, then you’ve got problems.

But like I said above, good job on my recent replacement. After all, she was able to get money out of the same place that would constantly try to Jew me out of work I put down on my time card, sometimes as little as 15 minutes.

She was able to get money out of the same place that wouldn’t pay a part-time assistant more than $8/hour after downsizing the previous full-time assistant job, which was more than $12/hour plus benefits. (I am now told by my deep throat that getting a full-time assistant for my replacement is of the “utmost importance.” Actually, it’s been of the “utmost importance” for over a month.)

She was able to get money out of the same place that had everyone CARPOOL to this most recent meeting. This is the same place that has its staff stuff envelopes rather than invest in an envelope-stuffing machine.

But the best part of this meeting? I found out from my deep throat how much she makes, so I got a few people to ask about the new hire’s salary at the meeting. What did my idiot bosses do? They said they “can’t recall” how much she makes. This coming from the same place that … well, you get the idea. Actually, in our most recent company publication, my one idiot ex-boss was bragging about how office expenses were down by THREE ONE-HUNDREDTHS OF A PERCENTAGE POINT while the annual cost of something-or-other went up by 4.3 percent. Of course, in the next paragraph, he mentions that due to an “unusually high” death-ratio-index, the company had to dip into its surplus for the last fiscal year. Yeah, “unusually high.” Too bad all our clients are old and getting older. That “unusually high” is going to turn into “normal” soon enough. But hey, we saved THREE ONE-HUNDREDTHS OF A PERCENTAGE POINT because we wouldn’t pay a part-time assistant more than $8/hour and spent more than 4 months replacing an office worker who died. The more and more I’m away from this place, the more and more I’m enjoying watching its decay from within.

8:30 p.m.

• Uh oh. I bet he's a Bush man.

Global warming isn't to blame for the recent jump in hurricanes in the Atlantic, concludes a study by a prominent federal scientist whose position has shifted on the subject.

 

Not only that, warmer temperatures will actually reduce the number of hurricanes in the Atlantic and those making landfall, research meteorologist Tom Knutson reported in a study released Sunday...

• Sixteen years later and this song still gives me chills. Damn good stuff. And not one "shizzle" or "bling" reference (or whatever the hell is being used now).

If you stuck around at the 1:50 mark, you would have heard the following line:

Took me from a boy to a man so I always had a father

When my biological didn't bother

Now who used that line as the key sample for his song?

Yep.

• Speaking of Shaq Daddy raps. And how long did they take to remake this track -- 3 minutes?