www.leefur.com

In case you're curious what I do for a living, my most recent project, for Nextel, recently launched. Of note, here's the entry page, which I helped with but didn't "own"; the phones page, which I did "own"; the plans page, which I also "owned".

As with all projects, my original ideas have been run through the marketing department mill and turned into a shadow of their former selves. In fact, there's a redesign of that plans page already in development. But anyway, there you go - the output of the second half of 2004.

Does your workplace use the phrase "growth opportunity"? I mean, most of the humans I work with laugh at the phrase. But unfortunately the others are the ones that control our paychecks. And they're the ones that use the phrase "growth opportunity" to describe anything you don't want to do. Example, using the characters from my earlier "Communicate" rant:

Manager Munch: "Lee, I'd like you to be in charge of action items and meeting minutes for the daily morning meeting. And I'd like you to create a 10,000 line Excel spreadsheet inventory for the whole site. Manually."

Lee: "But, sir ..."

Manager Munch: "Lee, I think this is a great growth opportunity for you." (subtext: "you aren't a pathetic loser happy in your current stagnant, soiled place in this company, are you, you unmotivated, useless pile of monkey shit?")

Lee: "Sigh."

It is never an option to be satisfied with your current job. You can't have tried to do something and have attained it. You always have to be striving for some soulless director spot or something. Do people really think this way? What am I missing? There are ways to be happy that don't involve licking butt for 30 years until you get that cush spot where you can unzip and let others lick your butt (another part of the plan I don't want to be in).

Hey all. Finally posting some of these photos, spurred on by the lunch I just had ... (click the headings, if that's not clear already)

Overnight in the Airport
Just a couple shots of me half-dead in the airport at an unruly hour.








Lunch Walk
Got lunch at a little cafe down by the water (pictured), and then took a walk on this little footpath that traces along the top of the cliffs that fall into the ocean. Good God my neighborhood is pretty. See for yourself. Please. (This album starts off with a couple shots in my apartment). I also took a choppy little movie.Check it out (AVI, 2 MB).

So it's 1:45am, and I'm in the airport. Kinda drunk. Cuz, you see. Well, it goes like this. I said I wasn't gonna bother whining anymore, but here goes anyway.

Something like 5 years ago, I started talking about San Diego. I talked and I talked about wanting to live there, about how wonderful it'd be. And then, eventually, one day I worked my situation and made a move to San Diego happen. After years and years of anticipation, San Diego finally happened (yall have no idea how many times i've had to go back and fix drinking-related typos).

Anyway, so fast-forward a bit, and I finally actually move out to San Diego. Two fucking weeks later (max), I am starting to make some good friends but I am told that I'm being pulled away, to fly up to Oakland to work on what sounds like the most utterly disinteresting and high-pressure project in the world.

So I report in for that assignemnt, and turns out it isn't even as good as it sounded. It's worse, in fact. But I keep plugging away, because I was told "we just need you to fill in while the IA from the last phase finishes up, so at the very latest we'll need you through February 22nd, the day of the big presentation." Well shit, that sucks but at least it ends soon, only like 3-4 weeks on the project.

Then I find out I'm being booted out of my apartment and I have to somehow find a place to live while I'm being forced to travel up to Oakland for slave labor each week. Shit. Shitty, but at least I know it ends in like two weeks.

So fast-forward to this morning. I've spent two solid days this week conducting interviews with high-ranking managers, sounding like a doofus cuz I haven't been given the right amount of time/attention to understand what the fuck we're doing. I'm on pace for about a 65-70 hour week. Up at 8 this morning, in to work. But at least it's really just this week and next.

Last night I moved my flight because I was told there was no way I was getting out on time this Friday evening. So the only flight is nine-fucking-thirty, getting in at around 11. Great.

So I get into work, and swiftly find out that despite the literally-to-my-face-from-the-VP-promise that I'll be on this through, at most, Feb 22, it turns out that's not true. I'm officially staffed through March 11. So that's like 3 more weeks, nearly doubling my time on this shitass project and away from home.

So fucking great. We start slaving away, 6 of us in one small room (different than that other room I described). So slave, slave, slave. About 7.30p I finally leave for my 9.30p flight, 70 hours done for the week. I'm brain DEAD. Understandable, right?

So I cross the street to the parking garage for my shitass Ford Focus rental, and instantly remember seeing the sign that they close at 7p ("surely I'll be back by 7 on a Friday"). Luckily the guy is counting out the register, and I yell to him, and he lets me in and begrudingly lets me get my car. I pull up and offer my AmEx, but he tells me it's cash-only. So I quickly toss aside my wallet (cards only), and pull out my cash and pay my $12 and I'm on my way.

Find my way to the rental place, return the car, catch the shuttle to the terminals. Okay, got like an hour and a half - I'm in good shape.

In the terminal, walk up to a self-serve check-in kiosk, and reach for my wallet to get my credit card for the machine. Uh-oh. No fucking wallet. Quick mental rewind. Shit. I quickly tossed my wallet down in the garage, because I was already putting the guy out and wanted to get him what he wanted quickly - cash. Thanks work, for making me stay past garage closing time. Oh and thanks for making me so tired that I couldn't remember where I'd put my wallet.

So I quickly go back to the rental car shuttle and go back to Avis. "Err, forgot my wallet in my white Ford Focus. Here's my contract." Some really nice manager lady takes the contract and we start walking around the lot looking for a white Focus. Can't really find one. So ... hmm. We look on the back lot - no luck. So we go over to the Budget lot (they share). No luck. So we go to "the north lot", which is a dark, rape-friendly type place. Nope, still no white Focuses. We head over to the repair bay, no luck. Just a silver Focus with a plate ending in 484, instead of 848 like she says we're looking for. So we go back and double check all the other spots. Then she looks back at the contract - it's a SILVER car we're looking for, ending in 484, not 848 - woopsie! Seems we saw the car that probably has my wallet, like an hour ago. So back we go. We find the car. Finally!

Doesn't have my goddamned fucking wallet. She offers to drive me to the airport, and if I can't work anything out, to rent me a car under my already-entered info, so I can at least drive the 9 hours down to San Diego. Drops me off. Four cops (state cops, tough-guy dickfucks) yell at us for blocking traffic. I'm like "dude, i'm trailing a 70 hour week with ... ugh ... fucking forget it". Cops give me shit. I roll my eyes and move along.

Southwest counter. "Hey ... so I'm in a world of hell, lost my license and I'm 3 hours late for my flight to San Diego now." ... "Hmm ... I can get you on a flight to Ontario, if you want". ONTARIO!? Uh, no thanks, but thanks. Turns out he meant Ontario, CA, which is sorta kinda sorta near San Diego. No more flights down to SD tonight. Too bad once I got to "ontario", I'd be screwed. No credit cards, no ID ... stranded. Next option for San Diego is tomorrow.

Hence, I'm sitting here at now 1:35am, waiting till 4:30 comes around so I can get my ticket for the 6am flight to San Diego. I'm not really functioning, more of a shell at this point. I was really, really, REALLY looking forward to having two (or three) vodka-cran's on the plane. Settling into that seat, then getting back, hopping in my jeep, and pulling the covers over me when I got home.

Instead, no sleep tonight. And all my credit cards are gone. And now I have no ID. I also have no place that I live. So when the DMV asks for a proof of residency in CA, I'll have none. And tomorrow I'm supposed to sign my lease. So when they ask for proof of ID, I won't have that either. Nice little Catch-22 for me.

Oh and I'll be handling that on zero hours sleep.

Oh and I have to fly back up to Oakland for more of this shit on Monday. Probably with no ID. That oughta all work out jjjjjust fine.

Sigh.

Kill me.

So I guess the cornerstone of the blog is the mind-numbingly uninteresting minutia of one's day-to-day existence. And I haven't done a good job of driving you to eye-gouging boredom with this yet. So allow me just this brief answer to "So, what are you up to?"

I'm in a hotel (the Hilton Oakland Airport, namely; and I haven't seen the friendly chap on that page) that is literally across the street from the Oakland Airport (or, namely, the car rentals for the airport). Truly a fascinating landscape. You know: run-down shops; flat, run-down hangar expanses; a complete lack of decent restaurants (I've eaten at Subway more than anywhere else; and how much do I like Subway? Anybody? Bueller?), etc. When I do go into the office, it's a 10 minute drive wrapping around the pastoral sights of the outer rim of the airport (adminstration buildings, mostly), past a golf course laden with people doing one of about ten million things I'd rather be doing, and then into a horrifyingly depressing industrial park, until I find the completely indistinguishable building that houses the sullen gray office to which I report. Then it's into an office about 7 feet wide and 10 feet deep with seven people in it. Yeah, do me a favor and picture that in your head. I'll pause for effect ... . We don't have enough chairs, or internet connections, or even shoulder space, if everyone shows up. Glorious.

But luckily (?) I've been working out of my hotel room for the past day, and the rest of today. I'm interviewing managers in the particular company we're working with to get more information about a project that I completely don't understand. So when they ask a question, I say something smart like "That is an excellent question. Let me capture that and follow up with you later." Then I die a little.

So hopefully by the end of today, with two solid days spent in one room, I'll be completely insane and welcoming the drive to the pale gray office (to be fair, I've left for two meals - in another building in the hotel).

And if I get one more email notification for another "Valentine's Day Sale", or "Get Your Sweetheart That Which Matters Most", or anything of the like ... I'll ... well ... I'll sit here and die a little more.

But on the whole, I'm psyched; in three days, I pick up the keys to my 292-feet-from-the-ocean pad. Yee-haw!

I'm on a plane right now, just got done cramming for 3 hours (after my work day) on this stupid document in the airport and then here folded into my airplane seat. I had a bunch of non-work-related things to blogger on about, but now I want to complain about something worky. So on with the angst:

Tell. Told. Emailed. Yelled. Wrote. Called. Talked over. Blabbed. Whispered.

When did these words become uncool? Did I miss a God damn memo? Better question - when did they become too vague, or too inaccurate? Now I haven't been in the ol' working world all that long. But even I remember a day when the sentence "Yeah, I communicated that to Bill the other day" would get a strange look and - if you were to use it repeatedly - perhaps a slap in the face. Now all these high-falutin' office monkeys find importance in using unnecessary (and in this case, unnecessarily vague) words to communicate. Did you see that? I used "communicate" because it made sense there; I was referring to various forms of communication - verbal, written, emailed, shouted, met and discussed at length, passed-in-the-hall-and-shouted-and-moved-along- too-quickly-to-allow-a-retort, etc. But these butt munches make such a feeble attempt at faking intelligence by saying "communicate" instead of the simpler and more accurate choices I laid out above. Typical example:

Lee, to Butt Munch: "Butt Munch, did you tell Manager Munch that there's no way we can do 13,000 hours of work by the end of next week?"

Butt Munch, to Lee: "Oh, yeah. I communicated that. I'm still waiting to hear back. I'll let you know."

Well, you fucking butt munch, in what form are you expecting to hear back, since we're apparently operating on such grand and vague terms? I imagine Manager Munch will probably hurredly (and self-importantly) rush past you in the hall and murmur some sort of dismissive acknowledgement of your "communication." But perhaps you'd prefer Manager Munch to use sky writing (but alas, he would never approve that expense report). So maybe in the form of a bagpipe from yonder hill? Perhaps war trumpets? Maybe an interpretive dance? Donkey call? Sonar blip? You fucking jackass.

Next time, Butt Munch, when I ask you a question like that, do me a favor and relax the shit-eating part of your brain for a moment, and lie to me instead by saying "Oh, yeah. I told him about that. He's gonna get back to me. I'll let you know."

I swear, at some point I'm gonna "communicate" with my fists.

. . .

That wasn't sufficiently cathartic. Let's hope the vodka cran helps. Oh - we're beginning our descent into San Diego where it's 70 degrees with a light breeze out of the north west. Faaaantastic! (I could continue this rant, but about the chicken-shit management phrase "growth opportunity" ... but I temporally digress)