Minor victory thread

Job hunting absolutely sucks, and that is actually part of why I stay stuck in my dead end support job. Just the idea of going out there is enough to give me stress. I'm interviewing for an internal function change within the company which has maybe 1/5th the amount of hoops to jump through and useless admin to do and it's still stressful.
Having said that, I just had an informal call with the manager of the team I'd be moving to, which resulted in "when I saw you were considering yo brought a smile to my face", "I have to leave the posting open for a week more but there's no other candidates I can think of I'd prefer over you", "we said the pay grade and title stay the same but you're in a lower pay grade than I thought you were, we'll definitely bring you right up", "yes, you can keep your preferred schedule" and "oh, I don't care which days you come into the office, do as suits you best".

So, there's that, I guess.
 
My cat's stuff had been sitting in the garage for the past several months. Today, we put it up on the Nextdoor app. Within minutes we got a response. They were a mother/daughter couple who had recently adopted two junior cats and were in dire need of some cat gear. They got the tower, scratch pad, food storage bin, carrier, and some dental treats. It was nice talking with two other cat lovers because they get it. They sent us videos of their cats after they got home.

I'll admit to being a little conflicted before we put the items up. I had assembled the tower with care and dedication, and it had belonged to Catness. But when I saw the joy it gave to those two kitties all my doubts fell away. They were climbing all over the tower and treating it like their penthouse/castle/fortress of solitude. Those items have a new life now, and I like to think Catness was looking down and purring in approval.
 
At least 6 months ago I started reading The Hobbit to my 7 year old. He humored me, and after a bit seemed to enjoy it. We made it to the trolls, but after that he sorta lost interest. I figured he was still a bit young, and didn’t push it.

A couple weeks ago he wanted to pick it up again. Since then we’ve been reading almost every night before bed, and he’s even been wanting to read some himself. He’ll stop me so he can read a page, and then have me take over again. I’m hoping he’ll want to move to LoTR after, but I’m ok with whatever. That might be a little long.
 
Having said that, I just had an informal call with the manager of the team I'd be moving to, which resulted in "when I saw you were considering yo brought a smile to my face", "I have to leave the posting open for a week more but there's no other candidates I can think of I'd prefer over you", "we said the pay grade and title stay the same but you're in a lower pay grade than I thought you were, we'll definitely bring you right up", "yes, you can keep your preferred schedule" and "oh, I don't care which days you come into the office, do as suits you best".

So, there's that, I guess.
Just got confirmation that I did get the function. But, well, it's more and harder work for the same title and pay, "with more options to grow", and some promises about fast tracking me to a higher pay grade. Guess we'll find out quickly if I'm once again the idiot being taken advantage of to do more for less, or if it's actually a step forward.
 
So, weird. Got another email from a different HR rep at the same company that they now want to do an interview. :confused:
Whats going on over there.
As someone who's done a bit of hiring, you may have been 2nd or 3rd in line, but their first pick didn't work out for some reason, and they went "you know, I kinda liked that other guy. Let's see if he's still in the market"

I once had a guy accept a job offer, and the day before he was supposed to start, he got a better offer elsewhere--so I went with my second-best choice, and they turned out to be a diamond in the rough, so I was really happy it worked out that way.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
Yeah I got my job at the radio station all those years ago without even applying. I applied to the internet service provider who had the radio station as a client, and didn't get that job, but then the radio station asked them if they had any recommendations for IT people and they shared my resume with radio station.
 
A choir member asked me for a copy of my sermon from yesterday to send to their trans grandchild, to let them know that their church supports LGBTQ folk. So that's nice.

But the actual victory here is that I was listening to the podcast version of the sermon (only briefly to make sure it was the right one), so I could send them the link and much to my surprise - I like how my voice sounds in recordings now. I used to loathe it, just cringe completely, and now it's like: 'yup, that's me, and I sound good.' So, yay!
 
My students had their first major assignment due last week. I found one paper was 94% plagiarized, and it was copied from a previous student's paper. This cheater is one of those students who habitually stumbles in half an hour late (it's a one hour class) and either sleeps or sneaks out ten minutes before class ends. It looks like Sleepyhead is my first catch of the academic year. Of course I informed them that they can meet to go over their paper, but this is one of the most blatant cases of academic dishonesty that I've seen. I think I'll send a quick email to the dean of student affairs by the end of the week.

I'm putting this in the minor victory thread because that's one of just two cases of plagiarism that I've seen so far this semester. That's out of 150+ students. They already know that I cut them plenty of slack with late assignments and that I'll proofread their papers if asked. They also know that I take a dim view on cheating once I verify it.

 
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Roommate has been really upset the last few days. Our other roommate plugged something into his surge protector and there was a pop and his computer reset during an update download. When the system started again it was loading things very slowly. YouTube main page was taking 30 seconds and a game was taking nearly 5 minutes. He thought it might be the update didn’t load correctly but Microsoft was saying he was up to date. He updated drivers and did a defrag, He factory reset the thing and downloaded everything all again. When that failed to work he paid Alienware $100 bucks for IT and they confirmed his hardware was fine and did everything they could remotely to make sure there weren’t any messed up software. Basically roommate had given up and was trying to come to terms that he had a $5000 paper weight.
I was out of ideas myself as I had been doing my best to help. This morning I tried his computer again while he was at work and it was still loading at molasses speeds. I tried to consider what caused all this and wondered how did the surge protector fail to keep the computer from harm. Then I thought … maybe it did exactly what it’s supposed to do. Maybe it was the surge protector that was messed up.
Plugged the computer into a different surge protector. Bam. Working just fine again.
I’m not IT. But I feel smarter than IT.
 
Roommate has been really upset the last few days. Our other roommate plugged something into his surge protector and there was a pop and his computer reset during an update download. When the system started again it was loading things very slowly. YouTube main page was taking 30 seconds and a game was taking nearly 5 minutes. He thought it might be the update didn’t load correctly but Microsoft was saying he was up to date. He updated drivers and did a defrag, He factory reset the thing and downloaded everything all again. When that failed to work he paid Alienware $100 bucks for IT and they confirmed his hardware was fine and did everything they could remotely to make sure there weren’t any messed up software. Basically roommate had given up and was trying to come to terms that he had a $5000 paper weight.
I was out of ideas myself as I had been doing my best to help. This morning I tried his computer again while he was at work and it was still loading at molasses speeds. I tried to consider what caused all this and wondered how did the surge protector fail to keep the computer from harm. Then I thought … maybe it did exactly what it’s supposed to do. Maybe it was the surge protector that was messed up.
Plugged the computer into a different surge protector. Bam. Working just fine again.
I’m not IT. But I feel smarter than IT.
I'm honestly horrified that the surge protector didn't get replaced the second it made a popping sound.
 
I was feeding the feral kitties near my department building and two out of the three trust me now (the third one is undecided). One of them even tapped on my foot while I served up their food. Hopefully they can be fostered out in a month or so.
 

Dave

Staff member
I haven't said anything but at my doctor's visit a couple weeks ago some of my numbers were a bit wonky. So last week I went in for a cardiac CT scan. Just got the results. 0-5% blockage. Completely normal in every way. Still got put on metformin, but that's about it. My heart is STRONG, baby!

From my chart:

FINDINGS:
The following coronary artery calcium scores were obtained:

Left main coronary artery: 0
Left anterior descending coronary artery: 0
Left circumflex coronary artery: 0
Right coronary artery: 0
Total = 0

Extent of coronary artery disease (CAD) based on calcium score:
0: No identifiable plaque. Very low cardiovascular disease risk. Less than 5% chance of presence of coronary artery disease. Negative examination.
0-10: Minimal plaque burden. Significant coronary artery disease very unlikely.
11-100: Mild plaque burden. Likely mild or minimal coronary stenosis.
101-400: Moderate plaque burden. Moderate nonobstructive coronary artery disease highly likely.
>400: Extensive plaque burden. High likelihood of at least one significant coronary stenosis (>50% diameter).
 
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I found a dove in a grocery store parking lot last night. It was trying to fly but I knew something was wrong. It kept flopping around. I got a blanket out of my car and a security guard helped me wrap it up. I brought it home and found a shoebox for it.

This morning, I brought it to an SPCA wildlife center. It had a dislocated wing. So they’re taking care of it and it will be fine after rest and recuperation.

Oh, and the two feral kittens I was feeding on campus are gone now. They have most likely been fostered out because they were becoming sociable enough. That just leaves the friendly mama cat. She’ll probably find a home soon.

I think I just multi-classed into a druid.
 
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I haven't said anything but at my doctor's visit a couple weeks ago some of my numbers were a bit wonky. So last week I went in for a cardiac CT scan. Just got the results. 0-5% blockage. Completely normal in every way. Still got put on metformin, but that's about it. My heart is STRONG, baby!

From my chart:

FINDINGS:
The following coronary artery calcium scores were obtained:

Left main coronary artery: 0
Left anterior descending coronary artery: 0
Left circumflex coronary artery: 0
Right coronary artery: 0
Total = 0

Extent of coronary artery disease (CAD) based on calcium score:
0: No identifiable plaque. Very low cardiovascular disease risk. Less than 5% chance of presence of coronary artery disease. Negative examination.
0-10: Minimal plaque burden. Significant coronary artery disease very unlikely.
11-100: Mild plaque burden. Likely mild or minimal coronary stenosis.
101-400: Moderate plaque burden. Moderate nonobstructive coronary artery disease highly likely.
>400: Extensive plaque burden. High likelihood of at least one significant coronary stenosis (>50% diameter).
I am not giving medical advice but please keep an eye on kidney (GFR) numbers. T2D and kidney damage go hand-in-hand. Glad your heart #s are good! Congrats!
 
Update: One of the feral kittens is back. I'm thinking the TNR group did its thing. At least he's with his Mom again.

In the meantime, the mama cat has gotten straight up demanding. She will yell for food as soon as I arrive at my building in the morning. After I get her breakfast ready, she meows and gets me to follow her to the place where she usually eats. She is not afraid to get close to me. In fact, she'll sit right by my feet. She just draws the line at petting.

If I were to bring her home, she'd probably wake me up by jumping on my chest and smacking my face.
 
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