And speaking of nonsensical conditional language (such as "something to shoot for"), my old manager is history! Woohoo! You know, the annoying guy who couldn't ever answer a question with a yes or no (and who screwed me out of the position I deserved)? He left the company a couple of weeks ago to move to New York City and work on his "relationship." I didn't know robots could have relationships. I'm not so sure he knows it, either. Hence, the working on it part. The good news is that I never have to see his face (via that obnoxious webcam) ever again. Hooray!
Would you care to read an excerpt from my performance review last month? It was actually face-to-face. He made a special trip.
Scott: This is the portion of the review in which you can provide me with feedback on my performance as your manager. Is there anything you feel I could improve?
Me: Well, I often find that it's impossible to get a straight answer out of you. You never respond to questions with yes or no. Instead, you use a lot of conditional language, and I find that confusing.
Scott: Hmm. I'm not sure I follow. Can you give me an example or two?
Me: Sure. Whenever I ask you a question, you respond with phrases like, "that's certainly one option" or "this is definitely something we should consider" or "it might be something to try," etc. Sometimes, all I want is yes or no.
Scott: Some people may see me as excessively diplomatic. I've often thought that may be the case. But giving more definite answers is something I'll have to shoot for.
Me: Is that a yes?
(I thought it would be fun to bold Scott's conditional nonsense for you. You're welcome.)
Now, I seem to be working for the invisible manager. She's been in charge of our team for three weeks, and we've never actually spoken with her. I know her name, and I've seen her face on the video conference...but that's about it. One of my coworkers is convinced that she's attempting to manage us through our project editor. And that makes some sense...considering his sudden Jekyll and Hyde personality transformation. He's gone from a sweet-tempered, docile team player to a raging micromanager. It's been unpleasant, to say the least. One of my teammates went so far as to unfriend him from Facebook. That's practically the kiss of death, as you know.
In other news, I wear glasses now. Turns out that creepy eye trick is less of a trick and more of a disorder. Remember way back when Emilie and I went to that 3D movie and decided that, instead of a lazy eye, I had an "ambitious" eye? It wasn't that my eyes didn't want to look; it was more that they wanted to look too much! Well, it's actually closer to being a lazy eye, after all. If this problem had been worse when I was a child, it could have ended up that way. My advancing age has made the issue harder to control. Hence, the glasses. Over time, it'll continue to get worse, but, happily, I am past the age where a lazy eye is a possibility. The doc said 3D movies are a total waste of money for the lazy-eyed. As long as I wear my glasses underneath the 3D glasses, I'm all set!
The weirdest part is that I have 20/20 vision. So, my glasses are just prisms, designed to trick my eyes into thinking they're looking at the same thing. Otherwise, they're just glass--no prescription at all.
Meanwhile, I've been thinking that my eye doctor could probably set up shop as a fortune teller for extra cash. At my appointment, he noticed the problem and said, "Your sister has this, too." And I was like, "How do you know I have a sister?!" Sure enough, Lindsay was just diagnosed with the exact same eye trick. I mean, disorder. And I'm thinking Bridget has it, too. It's entirely possible that my eye doctor's prediction will come true for all of my sisters. If so, I'll have to nominate him for the Ripley's Believe it or Not show.
By the way, if you aren't sure what prism glasses look like, they look like regular glasses. After my diagnosis, I attempted to look them up online and was horrified by what I found at SkyMall. Just so you know, I can't actually lie on my back and read a book like this:
Never believe anything you see on SkyMall. This is a valuable lesson you don't have to learn the hard way. Just take my word for it.
B
Pet Peeve of the Day:
You know when you download a free book on your Kindle, and it turns out to be practically the worst piece of garbage you've ever read? And then you feel overwhelming guilt for having wasted so much of your time reading it? You figured it was free, so why not? But it wasn't really free, was it? Because it cost you precious time that, at the end of your life, you'll wish you could get back...but you never can. A lot of the time, they're heavily religious. And Amazon fails to mention that in the labels. That really gets my goat! Although, not all free books are bad. That book about the human replacements who look like an amalgamation of cats, reptiles, and people was pretty good. Unlike the main character, I probably wouldn't want to date a guy with razor-sharp claws and spiky teeth...but I respected her choice. And, hey, he seemed like a good guy. If we were all killed off by a super-parasite, I, for one, wouldn't mind if a man/lizard/cat species took over the world. As long as they were like that guy.
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