Work affirmation: All state employees go through a 6-month probation period when they’re hired—”just in case things don’t work out.” This e-mail exchange took place on 02/05/09 between the personnel rep (Marilou) and my manager (Jude):
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Jude,
John’s probation will be up on 3/15/09—if you have no objection, he will go permanent on that date. Marilou |
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Marilou,
Excellent! – Meaning both John’s work, and his being made permanent. Please let me know if any more confirmation is needed from me. I am sure the consensus among OCC and all the folks he has worked with is “He’s a keeper!” Jude |
This morning as I was waiting for the city bus, a yellow Wake County Public Schools bus passed by me and took an immediate left—into the very short road (about 100 feet) that leads into the parking area for my townhouses. “WTF?” I thought? “Why would a school bus turn up in there?
In a shorter amount of time than I would have imagined that bus to be able to turn around in, in our rather narrow parking area, it came back down to the main road with its right turn signal on turning toward the same direction from which it had come. The driver was holding up a sheet of what looked like notebook paper. Perhaps with some directions on it? “Another MapQuest route gone bad,” I thought.
As it passed by me again, heading back from whence it came, I laughed at the bumper sticker that said, “How’s my driving?” Circular, I’d say!
Once on the bus, at a subsequent stop a plus-sized girl boarded wearing purple sweatpants that said “Apple Bottom” on the butt, and I thought of this incident at Disneyworld a year ago January. I also thought of the first eight words of this song.
And the final bus vignette for today consisted of the guy who—at yet another stop—got on and took a seat up and to the left of me. He had a small seashell, a real seashell, entwined into one dreadlock—at the end of it—just behind his right ear.
I enjoyed my work today, and had two professional affirmations during it—the first one was an email from a colleague of mine, on which he had copied my boss:
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Hey John:
I was cleaning up my inbox and realized that I hadn’t actually replied to this e-mail (although I know we talked about it in person). Sorry about that! I think the migration between the old and new antivirus sites has gone extremely well. Being able to edit content directly in Drupal, rather than futzing with Dreamweaver, has really helped get things done more quickly. I really appreciate the help you’ve provided during the transition, and for that matter with the rest of our communications process for antivirus. It’s been tremendous to have someone putting some direct thought behind how we talk to campus about this stuff, and I’m pretty sure that I speak for both myself and Neal when I say that it’s been valuable. Thank you. Ed |
| My boss told me that in a recent meeting of high-level managers (directors), a (different) colleague (than the one above) had noted to the directors that they really appreciated my help on some recent work we did together and that they enjoyed working with me. |
I had lunch at the Atrium Food Court, off the Brickyard, and while I was eating, two friends of mine—who both also work at NCSU and who are boyfriends—walked by. We had a quick hello.
I spent some time today going through last year’s edition of our Computing@NC State publication, which is published annually for the Fall New Student Orientation, looking for information and articles that need to be either updated or removed for the 2009 edition.
I also got an idea to create a graphic for a news blurb that we were going to put out to warn people about possible worms and viruses in Valentine’s Day e-greetings. I asked my friend Jen, who’s a graphic wiz, if she could “bring my idea to life.” And she did!
Cool beans!
Dancing was lots of fun tonight. Carl reviewed Matador, and later he, Ernie, and myself tried to remember Funky Cowboy—without much luck.