Wednesday, March 17, 2010

We've Been Compromised! Abort?

I don't know if I've been unlucky, careless or I'm turning into Michael Jordan of pretending to work "Minor League Baseball Edition", but I've had a few inconveniences lately. Nothing major, but I'm a pretty paranoid guy.


Last Friday, UW was taking on Illinois in the Big Ten tourney. I was sitting at my desk, with the ESPN TV feed playing on my computer, while sort of working, albeit not real efficiently. My monitor is in the perfect location relative to the door to my office, meaning it faces away from the door. So nobody can really tell what is on the screen unless they come around to my side of the desk. Anyway, about half time of the Badger game, one of my bosses (who is a big sports fan, and who knows that I am too) pokes his head in and asks me what the score was. I was a bit flabbergasted. I'm not sure if he knew that I was keeping track and didn't care, but just wanted to know the score. Or if he just assumed? I sort of played dumb like I wasn't watching it on TV and told him "last time I checked the Badgers were down nine....". I hadn't left my desk so I'm positive he didn't know the extent of my slacking. I personally don't think there is anything wrong with monitoring a scoreboard every few minutes, but I'm not the boss either.


When the game was over, he poked his head in again and asked. This time, I was onto his game and told him I don't know. He seemed disappointed and confused by the answer. Then I decided I would be "helpful" and say "Let me check. " And then he came to my side of the desk while I pulled up the box score.

The second incident occurred yesterday. Thursday and Friday of the NCAA tournament are about my two favorite days of the year. In a past life, I would skip class/take off of work to watch all day long. In my current position I can't do that. What I can do, however, is manipulate my schedule so that I don't have any appointments and can be sitting behind my computer between the hours of 11 a.m. and 4 p.m., where I may or may not watch MMOD. So last night (yes, last night) one of my bosses decided to come into my office while I was in there to take a look at our calenders to see if they could pawn some stuff off on me this week. When they reached Thursday and saw 5 hours blocked off with no explanation, the question was "what is this?" I just said, I don't want any appointments. Then, they went to Friday and saw the same thing and said "You don't ever want appointments or what?" So that was awkward. Nothing incriminating, but one of those things that will probably cause the bosses to wonder what I'm doing during those hours. My only saving grace is that this particular boss is not a sports fan, and probably doesn't realize that there is basketball being played during those hours.

The question is: Is there any reason for me to be concerned? I say not because I have been working 60+ hours a week for the last 6 weeks, and I feel I deserve to fuck around for two half days. Thoughts?

DVR ALERT!!! Friday, beginning at 2 p.m. do not attempt to communicate with me in any way unless someone died. I will be going dark and will be watching the last three sessions of the tournament beginning at 6 p.m. as if they were happening live due to Bucky playing at 1:50 p.m. Thank you for your attention to this matter.

ST. PATTY'S DAY: Happy amateur hour! Even though I'm a quarter Irish, I don't need an excuse to get drunk. I prefer Wednesday as an excuse. While getting drunk on green beer is fun, it also brings out the assholes who can't handle their liquor and like to start fights. And it is annoying.

3 comments:

gotwinkies said...

In response to your question...yes, there is reason to be concerned. From my past experience, bosses don't believe you deserve shit, especially time off. You are there for one reason, to make them money. Somewhere in time, probably around year 2 or 3 of being a "boss", 90% of them begin to suffer from insufferable greed and arrogance and become absolutely obsessed with money. Bottom line is, your non-sports boss doesn't give a shit about WHY you are gone, but only that you aren't there making money. They have no sense of humanity or reality. Fuck him and continue to watch your basketball and look forward to the day when you become one of these pricks. For the record, I like my current boss. This is in reference to my old boss, that fuckhead named Paul who doesn't know how to use the internet.

Juicelaw said...

I am present. I'm not leaving the office to watch basketball. So I probably make them some money. Just not very much.

gotwinkies said...

That post was more therapy for me than it was a legitimate response to your question.