contact from Katy ; other ruminations
Jan. 29th, 2005 08:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dragonlady7fwd: Hello--
from: mom
to: me, Ann, Adam's mom
I believe Katy's NCOIC is the non-commissioned officer in command of her group, which she would oversee once she arrived. I'm not sure, though.
The S1 and S2 are, I think, the officers just beneath her (she's a captain, which is the rank just above lieutenant).
Mmmm, leaky 80-person tents. Sounds like a Spring Break destination to me!
Had a shitty shift this afternoon. Hassles, confusion, headache wouldn't go away, and I had a whole slew of customers that simply didn't tip me, including several with whom I held long conversations and made friends and who watched me collect tips from other customers. I try not to take that personally, but really, it hurts my feelings, and makes it much harder for me to keep being cheerful.
Was reminded that attitude is important by the girl i was relieving, though. She bitterly complained that the managers prefer the girl just junior to her, and so won't let her bump the other girl to get the shifts she wants, because the other girl sucks up to them and gives them Christmas card photos of herself scantily-clad. Hmm, I thought... Other Girl is ceaselessly optimistic, takes on extra work when bored, and has worked for them since she was 16. You, on the other hand, I have met twice and both times you have spent the entire time complaining bitterly, even in front of customers. I can't imagine why the management doesn't favor you over her. No idea.
So, despite feeling like hell and being wounded that none of my customers felt I merited a gratuity, I tried to at least not be surly. (Despite all the whining I do on lj, I think I do all right at not being surly at work. It's my goal. I may have looked weary, and I probably made some faces at the television. I can't help that. But I try, dammit.)
My headache has eased somewhat. I'm trying to be pleasant with Dave. He's decided that he's going to spend the rest of the month, given that he seems to be unemployable, making a magnum opus of sorts. It's very dorky, and he was reluctant to explain it to me because it was likely I wouldn't get it, but I persuaded him, and I actually do understand. He wants to make a reasonable, user-friendly RDF database and interface, which is something he's been wanting to do for a while.
Now, RDF is more complicated than I can quite grasp. It's a sort of context-based method of structuring data, as far as I can understand. In short, you put a bunch of handles on knowledge so that computers can understand it, but in ways that make sense to humans. So in essence, it's a really human-intuitive structure for storing data (=database).
So far, this technology remains incredibly hard to understand because nobody's made a reasonable interface for it that makes sense. Dave's wanted to do so for over a year now.
So I understand just enough to know that what he wants to do is cool, is complicated, and yet would be really useful to a lot of people if well done (which it would be, as he's a bit of a perfectionist at this sort of thing). I don't know what practical application he'd put it to, but there it would be.
And hopefully, it will be something very cool that he could show prospective employers so that they would say "holy shit!" and hire him and pay him what he's worth. So these lean times, while guaranteed to last at least another, mm, 20 weeks, will hopefully ease dramatically shortly after that. Because someone will pay him what he's worth.
And then we can make future-plans. Depending on where the job that pays him what he's worth is.
And at that point I will also have finished my book. And perhaps can take the time to shop for agents to get said book published, or at least find out whether I'm publishable.
And all would be cool.
And it's just occurred to me that I've never actually watched the EE of FotR, so I may do that tonight, if the headache doesn't ease sufficiently to let me do any more writing. Chapter 6 will be finished tomorrow I'm sure (it doesn't need a whole lot of work), and Ch's 7, 8, and probably 9 require only a little work each. I'm hoping to tear through those because the ones after that... I'm not sure, but the later chapters of the book are going to need a helluva lot of work, so the more ahead i can get now, the better off I'll be. Slacking off now because things are going well, no matter how much I believe I need the break, isn't going to work, because I'm going to be in hell later.
from: mom
to: me, Ann, Adam's mom
I was going to call, but the phones are busy and i don't have the patience to wait tonight. I hope you all are doing well - i'm still in Kuwait, but we're getting closer to leaving so it's much busier than it has been. Adam's already in iraq - so is my NCOIC - and they both say the living conditions are pretty nice. Especially compared to the extremely leaky tents that we're in, crammed with 80 people per. Other than that, nothing too exciting to report. i've been hanging out with my girls - the S1 and S2, Dawn and Amy, both lieutenants and both dual military with no kids. And both wanting to get out of the Army... They're great people. I'm glad i have them.
Anyway, it's getting a little late, so I'll write again later. just wanted to let you know I'm still here. Love you all!
katy
I believe Katy's NCOIC is the non-commissioned officer in command of her group, which she would oversee once she arrived. I'm not sure, though.
The S1 and S2 are, I think, the officers just beneath her (she's a captain, which is the rank just above lieutenant).
Mmmm, leaky 80-person tents. Sounds like a Spring Break destination to me!
Had a shitty shift this afternoon. Hassles, confusion, headache wouldn't go away, and I had a whole slew of customers that simply didn't tip me, including several with whom I held long conversations and made friends and who watched me collect tips from other customers. I try not to take that personally, but really, it hurts my feelings, and makes it much harder for me to keep being cheerful.
Was reminded that attitude is important by the girl i was relieving, though. She bitterly complained that the managers prefer the girl just junior to her, and so won't let her bump the other girl to get the shifts she wants, because the other girl sucks up to them and gives them Christmas card photos of herself scantily-clad. Hmm, I thought... Other Girl is ceaselessly optimistic, takes on extra work when bored, and has worked for them since she was 16. You, on the other hand, I have met twice and both times you have spent the entire time complaining bitterly, even in front of customers. I can't imagine why the management doesn't favor you over her. No idea.
So, despite feeling like hell and being wounded that none of my customers felt I merited a gratuity, I tried to at least not be surly. (Despite all the whining I do on lj, I think I do all right at not being surly at work. It's my goal. I may have looked weary, and I probably made some faces at the television. I can't help that. But I try, dammit.)
My headache has eased somewhat. I'm trying to be pleasant with Dave. He's decided that he's going to spend the rest of the month, given that he seems to be unemployable, making a magnum opus of sorts. It's very dorky, and he was reluctant to explain it to me because it was likely I wouldn't get it, but I persuaded him, and I actually do understand. He wants to make a reasonable, user-friendly RDF database and interface, which is something he's been wanting to do for a while.
Now, RDF is more complicated than I can quite grasp. It's a sort of context-based method of structuring data, as far as I can understand. In short, you put a bunch of handles on knowledge so that computers can understand it, but in ways that make sense to humans. So in essence, it's a really human-intuitive structure for storing data (=database).
So far, this technology remains incredibly hard to understand because nobody's made a reasonable interface for it that makes sense. Dave's wanted to do so for over a year now.
So I understand just enough to know that what he wants to do is cool, is complicated, and yet would be really useful to a lot of people if well done (which it would be, as he's a bit of a perfectionist at this sort of thing). I don't know what practical application he'd put it to, but there it would be.
And hopefully, it will be something very cool that he could show prospective employers so that they would say "holy shit!" and hire him and pay him what he's worth. So these lean times, while guaranteed to last at least another, mm, 20 weeks, will hopefully ease dramatically shortly after that. Because someone will pay him what he's worth.
And then we can make future-plans. Depending on where the job that pays him what he's worth is.
And at that point I will also have finished my book. And perhaps can take the time to shop for agents to get said book published, or at least find out whether I'm publishable.
And all would be cool.
And it's just occurred to me that I've never actually watched the EE of FotR, so I may do that tonight, if the headache doesn't ease sufficiently to let me do any more writing. Chapter 6 will be finished tomorrow I'm sure (it doesn't need a whole lot of work), and Ch's 7, 8, and probably 9 require only a little work each. I'm hoping to tear through those because the ones after that... I'm not sure, but the later chapters of the book are going to need a helluva lot of work, so the more ahead i can get now, the better off I'll be. Slacking off now because things are going well, no matter how much I believe I need the break, isn't going to work, because I'm going to be in hell later.
