The week that was...

What a week at work.  It wasn't a particularly bad one, really. It did have weirdness, and plenty of mind-numbing tedium.

One little bright note was having the cell phone ring on Thursday.  It was whitetaildeer.  He said he was making a delivery in my area.  Well it turns out he was making a delivery to the Hilton that's attached to the end of my office building.  I couldn't go down to the garage to say howdy though,and of course, he was busy working. Still it was a nifty little surprise.  I didn't know he did deliveries this far down.

Most of Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday was spent inkjetting cd's.  It was decided by higher-ups that they should send out information and a presentation on one of our products to 288 people.  Upon realizing that printing, binding, and mailing the stuff would run over $1600, they decided why not just send it all out on cd?   So, who gets the honor of producing the things?  Me, of course.  Huzzah.  It was a logical decision, since I'm the one who makes up all the cd's for the software package I work with.  Unfortunately, those tend to be made in small batches, and the process isn't exactly speedy.

First off I have to beg the program manager from another group to let me borrow the cd printer.  It's normally locked away in a lab that I don't have need or clearance to go into, so it has to be unhooked and brought out to me.  It's also an older machine.  Basically, it's a Lexmark inkjet that's been modified with a cd tray.  It's also very very slow.  Like 2+ minutes to print a label on 1 cd.  On top of that, it's a very needy insecure feeling printer, meaning it gets upset if the workstation it's hooked up to does anything else.  So when I print with it, I can't really do anything else.  Oh, and it hates me and finds fun ways to screw up.  A typical day goes like this:

Me:  *puts cd in tray*
Printer:  *sucks in cd*
Printer:  *kaaah-whirr  kaa-whirrr kaawhirr*
Me:  *tries not to fall asleep*

Now and then, the printer decides to be ornery

Printer:  *kaa-whirr kaa-whirr*
Computer: *ping!  incoming email!*
Printer:  *kaa-whi...
Me:  Uh oh
Printer:  ...
Me:  dammit!
Printer *...whirr  ka............whirr*
Me:  sighs and writes off the cd since the grapic gets messed up
Printer:  Muahahahaaaa!

Or something like this

Printer:  *kaa-whirr kaa-whirr kaa-whirr*
Me:  Holds conversation with someone in the office
Printer:  *kaa-whirr  SKREEEEEE!
Me:  dammit!
Printer:  Muahahahaaa

Just imagine variations on that for 8 hours.

As for weirdness, most of that this week has been courtesy of ex-DEA guy.  The inkjettable cd-r's that the company gets are cheap things and dont absorb the ink too well, so it takes them a while to actually dry once printed.  As a result, I end up with prety much every horizontal surface in the office covered with cd's.  The scene:  me sitting in the office reading a RFP document while the inkjet tries to think up a new way to ruin a cd.  ex-DEA Guy comes in. 

ex-DEA Guy:  Are you printing up those cd's yet?
Me:  Looks around at about 60 cd's on the shelves, windowsill and elsewhere  "Uh...

Better yet was when he came in on Friday and asked whether I'd moved my stuff to the other office yet.  Gee, ya think maybe the fact that the other office is still empty and my current one isn't would be a hint.

Anyway, that's a summary of the majority of my thrilling work week.  You can wake up now.

One of these days, I'll learn how to do cuts in this thing.