Fresh Coffee and 20 Questions

Today's entry is a combination of things.  The first part will be about fresh coffee and the second will be me fulfilling a promise I made to a coworker today.

Coffee's Fresh

The funniest thing happened at work this morning.  We have a guy that every day, and I do mean EVERY day, he comes in and the first thing out of his mouth without even looking if anyone is on the phone is say "Good Morning All".  Now that wouldn't be so bad, but he does it at a volume that is about 1 1/2 times louder than everyone else is talking.  He is also famous for other famous phrases such as "What's the word of the day?", "Any words of wisdom?" and "Can I getcha anything?".  Today he introduced a new phrase "Coffee's fresh".  The best part about the new phrase isn't the phrase itself, but how it was introduced.  You see, at the time of introduction, he was on the phone with someone trying to resolve a computer issue when his workplace hero walked in the room.  The guy put his customer on mute, turned to the hero, and said the new phrase.  He had no more gotten the phrase out and he turned back around, took the phone off mute and said to his customer "Yeah I'm still here.".  The tone of the way he said it made us all laugh.  He continued to say the phrase a couple of more times during the day.  My friends and I at work have even used the phrase to pick on the 'hero' through out the day.  He was a very good sport about it, much better than when we told everyone that he brought in doughnuts because it was his birthday.

20 Questions

This portion is to keep my promise to Jamie at work.  Today Jamie and I were working and talking with one of our female coworkers who is famous for asking question after question until we bring it up, then she'll stop and we all laugh.  Well, she started asking questions, and I told Jamie that 20 questions would be my next blog post in tribute to her and we both agreed that it would be great.  So I am going to need help with this portion of the blog.  I am asking for questions from readers that I can answer.  I will answer almost any question, but I do reserve the right not to answer the question.  Rest assured I plan on answering almost any question posted.  I will gather all of the questions and post them together with their answers in an upcoming entry.  Here is a preview though.....

1. Where would you like to live if you didn't live in the Fort Wayne area?  I would love to live in Maryland close to the Bay.  I was born near there and got to visit a couple of years ago and it was beautiful.

Life isn't easy

I think the title of this post says it all.  I know that no one said it was going to be easy, but I would like to have a month or two where everything would go right and there wouldn't be anything to worry about.  Around here there never seems to be a shortage of things that either go wrong or cause worrisome thoughts.  I often wonder how some people never seem to have a worry in the world.  Are they hiding their problems/worries?  Do they have everything under control?  Are they better at handling things than me?

Having Asperger's Syndrome makes things harder, ie: lack of people skills, people not being able to read my tones, difficulty expressing my thoughts and feelings.  Tara is very understanding and has a great amount of patience with me.  Sometimes she probably has too much patience, but I am glad she does.  She doesn't harass me about not getting home projects done in a quick manner or if they aren't 100% perfect.  She gives me a little time to myself each afternoon to wind down from work since she knows how hard it can be on me sometimes.

If you have ever met me, you know that when I first meet you, I don't really talk much and when I do talk to you, I have a very hard time looking you in the eyes.  Once I know you better and feel more comfortable around you, I talk more, but still don't really look you in the eyes too much.  Alot of times, I often wonder if people put up with me and just wait for me to shut up so they can move on with their own business or day.  I don't want to be like the guy at work that no one likes talking too because he's a PITA (pain in the a$$).  I worry about this mostly at work and then with friends.  I tend not to worry so much about it with family.  I don't know if it's because I think they have to talk to me because "we're family" or some other reason.

At work, I worry if my boss or coworkers haven't talked to me in a while, that I have made them mad or they don't like me, even though I was on very good terms with them just the day before.  Besides my wife I have very few friends, which I can also somewhat attribute to Asperger's Syndrome.  I have some co-workers that I call very good friends, but I am not sure they feel the same.


I often deal with severe mood swings due to my feelings and things going on around me.  This is really hard on my family.  I don't like that it happens, but I haven't really found a way to successfully deal with them either.  I have tried different medicines, tried cutting out caffeine, tried psychologists, but none of it seems to help.



I understand that people don't understand me.  I understand that I do not understand all of their jokes and innuendos.  I just wish that sometimes I could be "normal" and not have to worry about some of these things.

To those who read this: "Thank you" and "Thank you for trying to understand".

I will try to post a lighter entry later this week, but I felt like I needed to post this.  It has been a rough couple of weeks for me and it was getting harder for me to deal with things.

Happy Birthday Tara!!

Tomorrow is my wife's 35th birthday.  Tara is probably the most caring, loving, genuine person I know.  She is always supportive of anything I do or want to do.  She never complains about anything, whether I call saying I have to work late, or if she has to watch football.  Tara has a great sense of humor and laughs at all my jokes, no matter how corny.  I love her more every day that we are together.  She is always the first person I see in the morning and the last person I see at night.  I would not have it any other way.  She is a wonderful mother, a great listener, and my best friend.

So Tara, HAPPY BIRTHDAY!! and I LOVE YOU WITH ALL MY HEART!!

People and Ethics

The past few weeks at work, there has been an influx of coworkers calling in 'sick', specifically 4 people.  I have a very hard time believing that these people have been ill mainly due to the circumstances surrounding their absences.

• One calls in sick almost on a weekly basis on the same day of the week, and if they have a vacation day planned for another day of the week, they are almost certain to call in for a second day.
• There's another one that we can predict when they are going to call in.  We get paid every other week and you can set the clock to this person calling in during the non pay week to burn that day of vacation they just earned.  They even get the fake cough going a couple of days ahead of time so they can sell the illness.  They almost always mysteriously become better on Friday when it's time to get their drink on.
• The third one calls in for 3/5 days when it is their turn to do break/fix at the hospital.  They will always work the first 2 days and call in the rest of the week.  The sad part is, the person is 50 years old and has to have their spouse call in.  If you are going to call in, at least have the balls and call in yourself.  Man up!!
• The last one is almost a carbon copy of the third, except they are single so they call in for themselves and this person hasn't even been with the company a year yet.  

The sad part is all four of these people come from a generation that is known for it's great work ethic.  I believe that that this generation does have a great work ethic, but these four people definitely don't have it.  They have no consideration for their co-workers or the company they work for.  I know not everyone can have perfect attendance, but at least try to go to work.

I love working with most everyone there, but sometimes these 4 can make it very, very hard for the rest of us to have a productive day because we are having to pick up their work also.

Football and Idiots

To me, there is no time of the year that is more exciting than the beginning of the NFL season. Everything seems to flow better and mesh better during football season. I am a BIG Washington Redskins fan and at work I not only have to deal with a Cowboys fan (he's actually pretty cool other than that), but I also have to listen to a Steelers fan talk about them being the only team with 6 Super Bowl wins. Actually, I would go to bat for either one of them, now if I could only get them to change their football colors.

Don't get me wrong, there are still idiots that I have to deal with, but they seem to be a little more tolerable during football season. Take yesterday for example:

I answered the phone for our help desk and it was one of our "frequent flyers", in other words someone that calls in on an almost daily basis with all sorts of questions. Yesterday was no different. Her problem was that she wanted to know if there was a quicker way to open a PDF file than opening Acrobat Reader and then pulling up the file if there were already other programs open. She said the extra click in the taskbar to show the desktop takes too long and she "doesn't have that kind of time". I know that anytime I can save 1/2 second in my day, it is always a good day. (That's sarcasm for those of you that couldn't tell.) She then proceeded to tell me that "computers should be more intuitive" and it should know what she wants. I was having a very hard time not laughing at the lady. I then told her that computers can't think for themselves and we have to help them by telling them what to do. No matter what I told her she was still not happy with the resolution I told her. So basically after going around with her for almost 10 minutes about this I decided to have a little fun with her. I basically made her sound like an idiot without directly saying those words. By the time I hung up the phone 5 minutes later there was half of the office listening to what I was saying and laughing.

Now please don't take the story the wrong way. I almost never talk to clients/customers this way simply because most are from the nursing field and have very little computer experience and they don't need me making them feel any dumber than they already do. I actually take great pride in the way I treat people that call in, but this lady had it coming. Everyone in the office has her phone number memorized and when it comes up on the caller ID, we cringe. The woman expects miracles to happen in her computer and on her monitor.

Enough about that, back to football. As I said earlier I am a big Redskins fan and follow Chris Cooley's blog, and love what they are doing over there. It is obviously pro-Redskins, but it is a good read for all sports fans, he covers a little bit of everything.

I realize the first two posts I've made have rambled on with no rhyme or reason, but bare with me. I will get this straightened out soon enough.

GO REDSKINS!! BEAT THE GIANTS!!

A Reason for Everything

There is supposed to be a reason for everything, so I am told. I guess that is true with this also. I have decided to do this for numerous reasons.

• It gives me a way to vent my daily frustrations without seeming like too much of a goofball.
• It provides an easy way to let everyone know of some of the crazy/stupid things that happen on a daily basis in my life.

There are other reasons, but those are the 2 main reasons.

Hopefully, this will give me a way to relieve stress from home and work, but mostly from work. I am a System Administrator and I/S Help Desk team lead for one of the largest and best healthcare companies in the state. That being said, it is very stressful at times, but also provides a lot (and I mean A LOT) of humor from callers. I am hoping to provide some humor for readers as I do this, but I'm guessing that some of it will be lost in translation.

At home, I have a beautiful wife, who I have been married to for 16 years. I also have 2 kids. My son, who is almost 10, has Asperger's Syndrome (I was diagnosed with this shortly after my son). My daughter, who is 8, has Sotos Syndrome and epilepsy. Needless to say, home life is full of daily little achievements.

Life hasn't exactly been what I signed up for, but when is it ever. I would not change anything abut my family or job. They are both full of wonderful people.

Until the next time....