Southworst

 

On January 1st, 2022, we received word that my Father-in-law had passed away.  Sue immediately began finding flights to Chicago.  On the assumption that Southwest Airlines would allow the most flexibility in modifying the return flight, if necessary, she booked a flight with them for Monday, January 3rd.  We would fly out on San Jose about 2:30, through Denver, and then to O'Hare.

We dutifully arrived at the airport a couple hours early on Monday, only to find out our flight to Denver was canceled.  Why we weren't notified of this is a mystery.  But our daughter, who had dropped us off, was now on the way home.  I called her to turn around and pick us up again.  Meanwhile, Sue was trying to figure out what to do.  Southwest happily scheduled us for a 6:30am flight Tuesday to Orange County, connecting to Las Vegas, connecting to Denver, and finally to O'Hare.  Unfortunately, Sue had a meeting with the funeral home on Tuesday, so we couldn't be flying at that time.

Kira arrived to pick us up, but Sue still wanted to get the flights resolved, and Kira couldn't wait, because she had class in half an hour.  So she drove back home, again.  I stayed with Sue, in case she managed to get a flight the same day.  We sat around at the airport for another hour until Kira could return after class.

Eventually, Sue scheduled us for the same Wednesday flights as we had on Monday: 2:30 to Denver, then to Chicago.

Tuesday night, we get an e-mail that our flight from San Jose to Denver was again canceled, and they rebooked us on the insane 6:30am San Jose to Orange County to Las Vegas to Denver to Chicago odyssey.  Fine, whatever.  If you're keeping score, that's two canceled flights.

So instead of arriving at the airport at 12:30, we now had to arrive at 5, which meant getting up at 4am.  Once there, checked in, through security, and to our gate, we finally relaxed.  Until the dreaded e-mail came in that the flight from Las Vegas to Denver was canceled, and they rescheduled us on an afternoon flight directly to Las Vegas.  So, it's 5:30am, and we have a 2:00pm flight.  It's gonna be a long day.  Cancelation number three.

'Round about noon, we got yet another e-mail, saying the flight from Denver to O'Hare was again canceled.  There's no way we're making the funeral now.  After four canceled flights, Sue is at wits end and ready to give up.

Notice EVERY cancelled flight, and most of the delayed ones, are Southwest!

As a last resort, I bring up Google Flights and amazingly found a United flight at 2:30, through Denver, to O'Hare, and quickly book that.  After that, everything went well, and we arrived at our hotel in Chicago at 1am.  Door-to-door it was 18.5 hours.

The Southwest agent we spoke to claimed that we would get a full refund, due to the canceled flights, but we have yet to receive that.  We did get two $100 vouchers toward a future flight as an apology.

I'm not sure we'll be using those...

Raise Me Up

Do you remember the worst annual raise you ever got?  I do, and it bugs me to this very day.  Actually I have two, for different reasons.  Let me explain.

My first few jobs were fast food.  My very first was at Arby's, making $3.35 an hour in 1987.  After that, I spent a number of summers working at Bob Evans (a home style sit-down restaurant).  I don't remember how much I made there, but it was in the $4-5 range, maybe $6-something by the end.  One summer I was interning at DuPont in the Mylar Casting Crew making really good money, but I only got that job because my Dad worked there, not through any merits of my own.  I'm not going to count any of those.

My first REAL job was at Etak, "The Digital Map Company," as a Cartographic Technician, making $11 an hour in 1996.  We made maps for in-car navigation systems long before Google Maps was a thing.  Anyway, I did great there, moving up to Cartographic Technician II, and getting a Quality Assurance certification.  But my first raise on the job?  $0.13 per hour.  Supposedly, that was technically a $0.25 raise, but I had only been there a few months, so they cut it in half.  That works out to a 1.09% raise.  If the raises came multiple times per year, that would have been fine, but now I'd be stuck with a half a raise for a whole year until the next review!

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Little did I know I would come to appreciate a 1.09% raise.  But to this day, it still annoys me that I got cheated out of half my raise.

Luckily, I soon left that job and got an instant 40% raise when I joined Intel.  The raises at Intel were mostly good.  There were two major exceptions:  in 2003 (post-9/11) and 2009 (2008 financial crisis), Intel was hurting and the whole company got a 0% raise.  It really sucked, but I can't take that personally.

INTC Stock Price  (Click to enlarge.)

Then came my most ridiculous raise ever.  In 2018 I got a raise, if you can call it that, of 0.007%.  It worked out to less than $0.01 per hour.  What is even the point of doing all the paperwork for that?  This too, had a reason behind it, though, so I technically can't take it personally, either: I was at the top of the pay range for my grade, so my manager didn't have a choice.  If I stayed in my current job, I would never get a raise again, until the company increased the pay range.

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After that, I switched roles to a job with more space in the pay range, so the raises have been coming again, but it's also a more challenging job, so they've been on the small side, still.

All in all, though, I can't complain.  Every raise is a raise, and I've gotten more large ones than small ones, so I'm happy.  Sometimes, ya just gotta laugh, though.

How about you?

Hanging with Greatness

My son is an épée fencer. Recently, he was at a national-level competition in Richmond, Virginia, and got to hang with this guy: That's Jordan and his teammate, Alexander, with Miles Chamley-Watson. Miles is the first U.S. man ever to win an individual Senior World Championship title, taking the gold medal in 2015. He's also sponsored by Red Bull, trains 6 hours a day, and makes funny videos:

Miles is 25, so Jordan has 8 years to get to that level. No pressure.

Cubicle Comedy of Errors

 At my work, we recently had our spacious 8x9 cubes compressed by 33% to 8x6. No one is happy about this. With a full L-shaped desk, you end up with about 15 square feet of livable floor space. And the door is right behind your back, so there is no privacy at all. It is unbearable. See for yourself:



Criminals get larger prison cells than this.  Click to enlarge, but not much.

 Imagine an entire floor of these boxes. Or don't imagine it. Take a look at our glorious cube farm for yourself:

33% smaller cubes also means 33% more people in the same area.

 On the up side, this has forced some of us to learn how cubes are constructed, and to figure out some more optimal cube configurations.

Do you know what these are for?  I do!

My friend Shawn and I both modified our cubes. I'm actually pleased with my layout now, even if it is smaller, and I've helped a few others re-arrange their cubes as well. All unapproved by management, of course.

I tell you all this to explain how I came up with the following scheme. Shawn was away for a week of vacation. I decided to give him the welcome home gift of eliminating his cube. I "borrowed" a 3-foot cube panel from somewhere else and closed off his door. The end result was this:

The photo was obviously taken from above. A normal person would see simply a solid wall where a door used to be.

I even made it more authentic by writing up a work order for door removal:

My job done, all I had to do was sit back and wait for the festivities Monday morning.  This is where everything went wrong.

Problem the First. We've been compressed for a few months, and to my knowledge, the manager in charge of the compression has never once come around to check if everything was done properly and we were happy (ha!) with our new prison cells. I figured I could borrow the panel on Thursday, replace it Monday, and no one would be the wiser. As luck would have it, the manager came around not three hours after I removed the panel. He was surprised to see empty space where there should have been a wall, and promptly wrote up a work order to have a panel installed. Oh no. Come Monday, I'm going to have an extra panel!

Problem B. Friday morning, Shawn calls me up from his vacation and asked me to get a box out of his cube and deliver it to a conference room. Uuuhhh.... Oh no. I briefly debated whether I could climb over the cube walls without killing myself.  In the end, the thought of lying dead in Shawn's cube until Monday convinced me to disassemble his door, remove the box, and put the door panel back in place.  This was clearly not planned well.

Problem 3.  I intended to borrow a ladder from Shawn on Monday to get some work done at my house. He was home Saturday, so I had to debate getting the ladder early, or wait until Monday after Shawn had seen his cube (or lack thereof) and potentially would no longer be on speaking terms with me. Decisions, decisions...

Luckily, in the end, everything went well. According to Shawn, he walked to his cube Monday morning, didn't find his cube, and was somewhat confused. Then he saw the work order and the panic started to set in. Are we in trouble for modifying our cubes? Would they really un-do all the work we did?? When he walked around the corner to find where they should have placed the door, only to still find no door, he finally knew it was a joke.

And he was a good sport about it and still let me borrow his ladder.

I'm still not sure what to do with this extra panel, though....

There was a young limerick from Nantuckit

Recently, my daughter had an assignment in English class to write a limerick, and she asked for help coming up with something.  My first thought was of all the bawdy ones I can't tell her, so that didn't help.  Instead, I decided to write one of my own for her.  This is what I came up with:

My Dad goes to work from morning to night.
He works all day, never seeing the light.
  He brings home the dough
  to feed us, you know.
That's why I love him with all of my might.

She didn't like it.  I can't imagine why.  She has no taste, I tell you, no appreciation for fine literature.  Where did I go wrong?

The Speed of Thought

I'm an introvert.  I think the main reason for this is because I can't think of anything interesting to say when I meet people.  My brain does not think on its feet.  It's very uncomfortable.  People say you just need to relax, don't worry, say whatever - friends won't care if it's some earth-shattering idea or not.  I agree, but seriously, something is wrong with my brain.

Let me give you an example.  I was recently driving my daughter to symphony rehearsal and was stopped at a light.  A car pulls up next to me in the turn lane and motions for me to roll down my window.  It was some elderly man, so I did, with the worry already beginning in my stomache, "Aww man, what am I going to have to say?"

He asks me, "How do I get to highway 17?"

Well, this is excellent, because that's exactly where I'm going!  I do a little internal Dance of Joy and I tell him, "Oh, it's just straight ahead.  You go around a bend to the left.  A Starbucks will be on your right.  Make a right-turn, and 17 is right there!"  I was very pleased with myself for being able to answer.

"Oh, so I'm in the wrong lane?"

Shit.  Stupid brain, why didn't you think of that before?

"Oh, sorry, no, you can actually turn left right here, and then at the second light, you'll hit Bascom.  Turn right there, and you'll get to 17 also!"

Again, I'm pleased with myself for coming up with the right answer.  The light turns green and off we both go.

I short while later, my brain nudges me and says, "Uh, the light we were at was Bascom.  We meant to tell him Camden."

Shit.  I hope the "second light" part was enough to get him to the right place.  Sorry, Old Guy.

Even when I'm not racing to provide information before the light changes, I find it extremely difficult to speak up and voice my opinion.  Especially at work, I need to think all the implications through before giving an answer, which makes face-to-face meetings very stressful.  I greatly prefer e-mail, where I can take the time to craft my answer.

Even in social situations, where the answers don't matter much, I still don't know what to say.  I spent my earlier years in online social games where you type to each other, because it gave me the freedom to think.  Maybe I looked like a slow typer, but that's far superior to sounding like an idiot.  Needless to say, this helped my dating skills not at all.

Even this blog entry, I've gone back and editted the sentences above many, many times while writing.  I could never have this conversation in real life, because my mind won't feed me the right words.

Is this normal for other people too?  How do you get around it?  To me, you look like the equivalent of the proverbial "social butterfly" always able to hold up your end of the conversation.  But maybe you feel as uncomfortable as I do inside?  I hate living this way.  It's so much less stressful to keep to myself, even though I don't want to.

Life is hard.

Card Sharks

So, we played the card game "3 to 13" last night. And I have a bone to pick with my Mom. Apparently, unbeknownst to me, when I was younger, my Mom would help us kids by not going out when she could, allowing us a couple more turns to reduce the points in our hand. In August when the kids and I were back home in Columbus, my daughter noticed this. Yes, she is evidently much smarter than me.

Anyway, last night, it was just Kira and I playing at first, and after a while, I discovered that she was being "nice" to me by not going out when she could, JUST LIKE MOM DID when we were there. ARGH!! I told her when we were playing for real she had to be cut-throat! Heartless! Ruthless!! She replied, "I'm ruthless like a puppy!"

Later, Jordan was playing too, and at one point, I picked up a card, and laid down a wild card for Kira and went out.. so obviously I could have gone out earlier. She didn't take the wild card and still went out. So she could have gone out earlier, too! So I called her on it, and she called me on it, and I explained that I'm the Dad and I'm supposed to, but not her. Meanwhile, Jordan is playing his last hand, looks up and says, "Wait-a-minute.. you're BOTH being nice to me??"

Man, we are no good at cards.. :)