Go Celtics! Woooo!

Hooray! The Celtics won, and tomorrow is the parade - or "rolling rally" which, in its mobile form, is designed to prevent the masses from soiling any one spot in the city for too long.

God I love drunken 15 year olds on my commuter train in the morning! Doesn’t matter if they are Celtics, Red Sox, or Patriots fans – I LOVE IT!!!!!!!!!!!

I also enjoy fighting through sticky throngs shouting “WOOOOOOOOO!!! WOOOOOOOOO!!!!” to get to work. They are already out there. I could hear them even as I just typed it. WOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!

They have also constructed some sort of stage just out my nearest window and put a cover band up on it. They apparently instructed them to begin playing at 5pm today. I am still at work, trying to work. But nevertheless, everyone enjoys “CARRY ON MY WAYYYYYWARD SOOOOOOOON!!!!!!!!!!” in every circumstance, at any time of day. I certainly hope they’re out there all day long tomorrow.

And, since the parade is practically going through our lobby, will we get to at least see 7 ft tall men riding on duck boats? Oh my no, because they scheduled some stupid whole office training for 9:30 tomorrow morning and god forbid they move it forward half an hour, or back to the afternoon. Because if they did anything that in any way benefited the workers here, people might stop quitting in droves. And what would we do if there were adequate staffing here? Nobody knows, because it has never happened, and we don’t want to find out now, thankyouverymuch.

Ew, Loser

To the guy in the Tax LLM Program who taunted the other student today that he has a “killer outline” and replied that he “has his sources” when asked where he got it:

You sir, are a dick. The laws of decency require that after telling people about your “killer outline” you offer to share it with them. It makes me sick to sit in class with you, you pompous ass. I certainly hope that the gaps in your outline coincide precisely with the areas tested on the exam. It is also my sincere wish that, tonight, having drunk too much green beer, you go home with a slutty undergrad from whom you contract the herpes. Harsh? Sure, but you and people like you are the reason I had a miserable three years in law school to begin with.

Sincerely,

The Girl Who’s Going to Get a Better Grade Than You Anyway

P.S. Happy St. Patrick’s Day!!!!!!!

(Obviously this is from a few days ago - but you probably can't read my dates anyway, seeing as how they're in Russian. Heheh. My inner Russian major geek continues to thrive, years out. I'm even making borscht for dinner tonight - pure coincidence.)

Woah There

Today, I spoke on the phone with the Nastiest Woman Alive. I had to call another federal agency to check whether this guy had done something so I could check off a box. I innocently dialed the number listed on my form and asked to speak with him. The woman who answered was like “This is not his personal cell phone!!!” I was like I’m sorry, do I sound like a prostitute? And in any case, are you his wife? Is this how you always answer your work phone?

So I said “I’m calling from the US Dept of Miracles, Office of Very Important Programs and I need to find out if one of his employees has done the thing he was supposed to do.” And she said “THIS IS A BUSINESS PHONE!!!” Really? Is it? Then maybe you should ACT PROFESSIONAL WHEN YOU ANSWER IT???? What is it you imagine a business phone is USED for? And are you, by any chance, on work release from the local insane asylum??

So I told her that, in fact, I was also calling from a business phone for a business purpose and could she possibly give me the number of someone who could provide me with the information I needed since she obviously did not have it. So she did. Then I asked her what her name was, and how to spell it, and what her supervisor’s name was, and how to spell that, and what his phone number was, and if he was in at the moment. And she started to say something nasty again and I was like “Look, I’m sorry if you’re having a bad day, but I’m just trying to do my job, and that means I need to hang up now.” Click.

What a nasty bitch! I couldn’t believe it! And she works for the very crappiest, lowliest agency there is (think: x-ray machines) so I cannot imagine where she developed that attitude. I got HIVES from having to talk to her! HIVES!!! That means I could sue her for intentional infliction of emotional distress, right?! Maybe I will if class tonight is really boring.

Upset, But Not Suprised

I got a generic form email this afternoon from the Accounting Firm talking about how they met me at OCI and can't hire everyone and blahblahblah we don't want you. Part of me wonders if I got it in error, since I'm not just some schmuck they met for 15 minutes at OCI as stated in the letter, and since they've been so fucking disorganized about this whole process, with multiple people from all over the country calling me repeatedly to ask for information they already had. I also resent their lie that they can't hire everyone. They could absolutely hire everyone they meet, all day, every day, because they have just that much money. That must mean someone there really hated me. Isn't that charming. Of course, I knew I wouldn't get the job, because I felt like the interview went well, which, clearly, is the kiss of death.

I assume this also means I won't be getting a positive response about Government Dream Job, since I thought that went well too. I emailed today to ask if I was ever going to hear anything, since it's been, oh, five weeks since my interview and they have not communicated with me directly in any way at all. The person I emailed today said the woman that had the information was out. I'm 90% sure it's this lady who wrote this nasty email that I saw last year about how they couldn't care less about anyone outside of the top 10% of their class (this, despite the fact that almost everyone who works there went to some crappy substandard school in the middle of nowhere - apparently their recruiting desires and reality don't synch up very well - maybe it's because they go around insulting people from good schools.)

So yeah, this is just great. I feel worse now than if I just hadn't gotten any interviews at all, because I got all optimistic that this LLM thing was going to be the solution to all my job problems, but apparently it's just another fucking expensive worthless degree I'll never use. Hurrah!

Also it was my birthday on Tuesday and I spent it in Vegas but who cares... I shouldn't be going on vacations anyway if I'm just going to be poor and in debt for the rest of my life.

Two More Interviews - Neat!

That's right. I'm Pop-u-lar. I've only been back in school for two months, and it has yielded 2 interviews, 1 callback, and a call from a recruiter based on a reference from an alumna. I heart my LLM. The third interview was just the result of my relentless pursuit of cushy government jobs that have little or nothing to do with the law. I also heart USAJobs.

So Monday I had an interview with my total government attorney dream job. The guys who interviewed me were young enough to find their way around the web, so I won't say specifically what it was, but it was the people I went shmoozing/boozing with in a previous post. And it turned out to be with two people who were there that night, who I had already met then and several other times, so it was minimally stressful. They seemed pretty positive about it. I don't want to be, because they can't crush a dream I pretend I don't have, right? I have a feeling the evil government HR people are going to screw me on a technicality. Sigh. But at least I had the interview...

Today I had an interview for a job I couldn't care less about, for a different government agency, but that pays 50% more than what I do now. Nothing else I'm interviewing for would start for at least 6 or 7 months, so I guess if they offered it to me I'd ignore that strange guilty feeling that comes from god knows where and take it. So we shall see how that works out.

Actually, this particular agency totally screwed me when I applied for this very job at the end of July. It occurs to me that I never blogged the story of how. Basically, they called me up, interviewed me, then told me that, because of an HR "oversight" they never should have interviewed me at all. And the reason they were digging around and discovered the oversight was because they wanted to hire me after that interview. Nice, non? I keep meaning to write a letter to that woman's supervisor so she can be sure to have it in her personnel file for all eternity. Maybe I'll do that right after I write my Xmas cards (and no, I'm not writing those *now* - I just schedule my letter writing way ahead.)

This wretched government HR error is not to be confused with the time when the Dept of Homeland Suckurity HR people totally screwed me on a job offer back last spring. And I've since become pretty sure that they were completely incorrect in the decision that was made there, and if I had known enough to fight it, I could have been earning almost a living wage this whole entire year. I hate them so much. I did send a letter to that evil whore's supervisor. So you see, I am capable of following through on my idle letter-writing threats.

I Hope It Rains And You Lose

I may be dropping Spanish. There are, you see, eight Tuesdays of class, five of which are cursed with home games.

Now, I know driving to Kenmore Square where my class is on a night when the Red Sox have a game a couple of blocks away is going to be a pain in the ass. I anticipate unholy hordes of drunks piling into and out of their cars for miles around. But I expect that to mainly take place NEAR GAME TIME, not so much two hours beforehand. And so it was that I came to drive very slowly for TWO HOURS in a train of aforementioned drunkenly weaving hordes desperately searching for a parking space, as far away as a 45 minute walk away from where I was going at 5pm tonight. I did not find a parking space. Not ever. To pass the time, I composed a modest proposal whereby everyone wishing to drive to a Red Sox game who doesn't live more than an hour away by car would be taxed, preferably in the form of having to kill one of their loved ones for the privilege (and I mean personally - no hired guns or arranged "accidents" - something really hands on.) I believe they have a similar system in London.

And lo! I see I am not alone - I was just trying to look up the London system, but this is even better. Now excuse me, I've got to go lobby for this to pass. In the suburbs. The far, outlying suburbs, too far away for even the drunkest idiots to park and try to walk to the game from. And I bet when I get there they'll still be there, parking in front of a fire hydrant and stumbling south, towards Fenway, which is deceptively visible from very, very far away.

You Can't Make This Shit Up

So the gist of what's been going on is this:

DHS offered me a job about two months ago that sounded crappy and paid about the same as what I'm making now

I expressed disinterest in their crappy job at the rate they were offering

Last week they came back and offered me $5,000 more/year ($8k more than what I'm making now)

I immediately accepted the job

They revoked their offer in a voicemail in the middle of the night

I had my IRS union rep call the woman back

They reinstated their original offer with the low pay; the job still sounds crappy

I asked them to reinstate their second offer and explain what the problem was

The nasty woman from HR who left the voicemail sent me a series of emails suggesting that I find someone else to answer my HR-related questions

I contacted her supervisor this morning to determine to whom I should then be addressing my HR questions

The supervisor answered my questions

The nasty HR woman then emailed me answering the same questions

I just emailed the nasty HR woman suggesting that she not contact me again until she has new information to relay

And there we are.