DTF chat thread v. 2049

[ReaperKK]

Ginger lime sounds delicious. Damn I want some mead now.

[Chino]

How big of a carbon rock are you saving up for?!?!?

Let's just say that the potential carbon rock recipient is the sole reason I'm working these hours, and it's got nothing to do with buying a ring.

Don't mess with burnout, unless there is no other option.  I was in the position where I basically had to work 70 hours/week for around 18 months, basically trying to keep the plane in the air on multiple programs (and so it was really fucking stressful), I did damage to myself, my health, and yeah, my marriage.  And I hit a point where I (metaphorically) crashed into the wall, and basically shut down.  Perhaps the warning was when I got my blood pressure taken at an allergy appointment, and the doc freaked out (top # was 147, I think, and it's normally right around 120).  I'm healthier on the other side of it, but I have a limit of ~50 hours/week, after which my brain just says "fuck it".

Luckily for me, the hours are spread across two completely different jobs. My M-F in my cubicle is mentally taxing, but Sat and Sun is just mindless kitchen work. I just crank some music, grab a knife, and go. If I was doing the mentally taxing stuff 7 days a week, I would have burned out by now for sure.

What do you do in the Kitchen? There is something to be said about doing a job that require little though, I remember in college I would just zone out and it almost become like a meditation.

Mostly prep work for the week. Making 100 pound batches of mac and cheese, cutting a few hundred pounds of potatoes, cooking and carving whole turkeys, making monster batches of stuffing and sausage and peppers, stuff like that. I actually love it. My office job is such a drain. From the commute, to the onslaught of internal audit compliance I have to deal with, managers who are a few years from retirement that refuse to adopt modern day processes and methods of communication, the thousands of emails I need to sift through a week... it's mentally exhausting. It's my version of hell on Earth. But when it comes to the kitchen, there's literally no pressure of any kind (hence the low pay I guess). Don't get me wrong, I'm in constant motion all day long, and I usually only take 1 of my 3 required breaks, but I don't mind. I just crank my tunes and knock out the items on my list. It's actually really therapeutic in a way.

[cramx3]

I worked at Boston Market in high school for two years and once I got myself promoted to be the cook in the back (server, to carver, to cook) I loved it.  No dealing with customers, just my private back area to get my work done.  I'd come in early in the morning and prep the side dishes for the day.  I'd blast some music before we'd open and then work till like 4 just making the sides and found it all pretty nice and relaxing now that I look back on it.  I had an annoying shift manager at times, but otherwise the job was just simple and stressless if you did it right which of course I found ways to do it much faster and better than others so hardly found myself scrambling to fill side dishes.  Actually found myself carving and serving when the dishes were all prepped.  I guess the negative of doing your job well, you get to do others jobs too.

[JayOctavarium]

Good Morning peeps.

Still sick. Wound up blowing a tire 2 blocks from my house as I was heading for work yesterday. Took it as a sign to call out sick. Instead of  resting, I spent the day working on trying to get a new tire (Thank god for Mexican Used Tire Shops), and getting other shit done.

Probably would have called out again today but I've got to get payroll and  some other admin shit done before I get chewed out by our main office folk

[millahh]

NJ folks: The roads are some bullshit.  Apparently one inch of light powdery snow is enough to make everyone not drive faster than 20 mph, so what should have been a ~23 minute drive instead took 65 minutes.

[cramx3]

Yea, it really looks fine out there but I have no expectations people will drive as they should.

[JayOctavarium]

This fucking vendor we got our Golf Cart from at work is pissing me off. The headlights on the cart, which were installed by them when we bought it, are wired up in a way where you CAN NOT change a bulb without having to undo a shitton of wiring, making so I MUST pay to have them bring the cart in (They charge like $70 to pick it up) and have them change the bulbs. Joke's on them... I am going to pull the entire assemblies out and bring them in. The really shitty thing is, I contacted their service manager, who supposedly oversaw the modifications done to the cart, if I could change the bulbs myself, to which he said yes.  Asshole.

[cramx3]

Booked my next work trip, going to Amsterdam on the 4th.  First time I've gotten approval to book business class for a flight, our new work overlords policy is we are allowed to for flights over 4 hours, but their system is so terrible for booking that it never actually allowed me to do so until now and at the cost of 7k  oh well, not my money and management approved it so I will be flying in style for this trip.  This does however work nicely with my concert schedule as I won't have to miss anything and my buddy just got us hooked up from his brother in law who works at MSG to get suite seats for the Disturbed concert there monday night   

[Chino]

Nice Cram! 

I walked into my bosses office yesterday around 2PM and told him I wasn't coming in today. He doesn't know I have the second job, so I told him that I just needed a day to take care of a backlog of personal stuff that I need to take care of during M-F business hours. Idk why I made up an excuse. I have 26 days of PTO this year, I could have just said "I need a PTO day".   

Anyway, I was up at 5:30 and threw a brisket on the smoker. That's all done and in a cooler resting, and now I got a ham and some mac and cheese in there. I grabbed a 24 pack of Heineken that I'm about to crack open. 


*drool*

[cramx3]

Nice dude, you need a day off so enjoy it

[ReaperKK]

Agreed. That sounds amazing Chino.

[TAC]

So last night the TACs got into a car accident. We were driving into Plymouth to meet my wife's cousin and his wife for dinner. We just got off the exit and were driving eastbund when a guy crossed the median and hit the car in front of us. I saw that and swerved to the right, but he was on me fast.

I felt something hit my head, which was the side airbag, but that didn't register at first. The moment after the contact, my thought went to my youngest son who was seated behind me. A true moment of dread. But he was fine, as were all of us.

Anyway, here are a few pics..

This is our car:




This is the guy that hit us, and his wheel:



I know the damage doesn't look too bad, but the guy hit us kind of hard. Luckily, it wasn't head on. My only regret was that it was my wife's Lexus. I wish we had taken our van with 250k miles on it. I've been trying to get rid of that for years now.

[jingle.boy]

Shit dude!!!  That's fuckin scary as shit to come that close to a head-on.  I can certainly imagine the dread - pretty similar I'm sure to when we got that frantic call from jingle.daughter that she'd been t-boned. 

Glad to see/hear the damage and impact was minimal... but get yourself checked out for whiplash and/or concussion.  It doesn't take much these days for the brain to get rattled.

[TAC]

I do have a headache this morning, but it could be the 2 Southern Comfort shots and 6 beers I had when we got home!

[jingle.boy]

I do have a headache this morning, but it could be the 2 Southern Comfort shots and 6 beers I had when we got home!

Southern Comfort??  C'mon man, you're an adult, not a teenager sneaking a quick nip.

[TAC]

Love the stuff.

[King Postwhore]

 

I had some brown sugar bourbon last night. Damn it was good.

[axeman90210]

Jeez Tim, glad that the family is OK so that I can expend most of my concern on your choice of liquor

[TAC]

 


Have at it!

[King Postwhore]

Holy crap Tim.  I did see your post! Glad all is ok!

[TAC]

Thank you.

Now it's a pain. Have to rent a car, of course the rental places are closed today. I am off tomorrow so we'll pick it up in the morning. Then it's figure out what to do with our car. We should be taken care of, and our insurance company is good, plus it was the other guy's fault.

In these instances, it's always better to be talking car insurance than medical insurance.

[King Postwhore]

Absolutely.   Guessing it will be totaled, you won't get the money you're expecting and it will cost you to buy a new car.  Never fair.

[cramx3]

wow Tim, glad to see you all are OK but that must have been scary.  Also, sucks it wasn't the van.

[jingle.boy]

Absolutely.   Guessing it will be totaled, you won't get the money you're expecting and it will cost you to buy a new car.  Never fair.

That was us... though luckily I did get fair market value for our vehicle.

[Stadler]

Wow, Tim, here's hoping you and your family are fine.   Car accidents are scary no matter what the outcome.

[JayOctavarium]

Good Morning All.

[Adami]

Just accepted a post-doc position in Long Island! Pretty pumped.

[Chino]

Absolutely.   Guessing it will be totaled, you won't get the money you're expecting and it will cost you to buy a new car.  Never fair.

That was us... though luckily I did get fair market value for our vehicle.

I got really lucky in this regard when my Mazda 3 Hatch was totaled. I had just put the thing for sale on Craigslist for $5200, expecting to get less than $5K for it. It was totaled a few days later and I ended up getting $8200. I was thrilled.

[jingle.boy]

Just accepted a post-doc position in Long Island! Pretty pumped.

Awesome-sauce.  When does it start?  Now you get east-coast winters!

[cramx3]

Just accepted a post-doc position in Long Island! Pretty pumped.

Congrats, that'll be quite a change of scenery.  Where ats in LI?

[Adami]

Just accepted a post-doc position in Long Island! Pretty pumped.

Awesome-sauce.  When does it start?  Now you get east-coast winters!

Starts mid August. East-Coast winters will be a nice reprieve. I think it's -40 here at the moment.

[Adami]

Just accepted a post-doc position in Long Island! Pretty pumped.

Congrats, that'll be quite a change of scenery.  Where ats in LI?

Thanks! I was there for the interview, and the scenery was much closer to what I grew up with. Very suburban, so it'll be a nice change. Plus just a train to Manhattan which is cool. And, being Jewish, more food I like.

[cramx3]

Nice, so not far from the city then and yea, lots of jewish folk in LI.  Glad that works out better for you.

[King Postwhore]

Just accepted a post-doc position in Long Island! Pretty pumped.

Congrats!!!  Wasn't that the interview you felt lukewarm about?

[Adami]

Just accepted a post-doc position in Long Island! Pretty pumped.

Congrats!!!  Wasn't that the interview you felt lukewarm about?

That was Pace, at Westchester. I actually haven't heard back from Boston. The one in Long Island I liked. I actually liked the Boston one better, but I think New Yorj is a better state for me for everything else.