11/18/04--Drama at the courthouse

I guess it was a good thing that I did that double issue last time, huh?  Its been a pretty interesting week at work, with tons of drama in the office.  Hmm...where shall I start?  How about....
1) "Nothing says loving like something in the oven"---no, not me stupid.  But the office has recently been hit by the proverbial wave of knocked up chicks.  And the really good news?  Only ONE is married!!  And one of them, a truly classy woman, is now expecting baby # 5...and has never been married (not even ONCE) and every single one of the kids with another father--good to know that our tax dollars are put to good use raising her kids.  Then there's the one that found out she was pregnant--right after her divorce was finalized (oh, I do hate when that happens).
My sources tell me that she's trying to keep the pregnancy secret---but...ya know...wearing sweaters only keeps the secret for so long.  Ahem.
Speaking of which...I heard a fantastic court story the other day.  Get a load of this one......Apparently, a few years ago, one of the people in my office was going thru some pretty tough times at home.  Loads of unhappiness and misery (woohoo---its not me, but it could be!) and it got to the point where the person had started wearing the problems on their sleeves by coming into work noticeably distraught.  So one day, she's in court....and apparently just starts to emotionally unravel.  Well lucky her, she's in court with the one judge in the courthouse who's truly Mr. Warmth and really just does'nt give a shit.  So apparently someone calls down to our office and tells them that something is going on and that they need to send a replacement up.
So the replacement gets to the courtroom and the woman is essentially in the fetal position.  So figuring that they might be looking at some sort of emotional breakdown, they have the paramedics called.  Medical help arrives.....and Mr. Warmth won't let them into the courtroom.  Why?  He doesn't want the court proceeding interrupted.
Really.
I'm serious.
So the replacement has to drag the hysterical woman out of the courtroom, right in front of the rest of the people there for whatever, so that the paramedics can attend to her.
Naaaa...doesn't sound like anything that might have interrupted court, huh?

Well, the clerk's office had their annual holiday party last week, and...as per usual, it was a total disaster.  I'm telling ya, the damn thing is cursed.  It might as well be the ghost of Bob Lockwood himself floating around going "booooooooo", like he's on freakin Scooby Doo or some shit.  So let's go into the details of the disaster.  First of all...for reasons not entirely clear to me (except maybe $$$), they held the party at the Museum of Art--which was hosting the Princess Diana exhibit.  That's great if you were dealing with a group of highbrow partygoers.  But we're talking about the clerk's office here, where for the majority of employees "highbrow" means getting their Budweiser chilled instead of at room temperature.  Anyway, the museum hosts the event--complete with security that keeps telling people...and I quote:
"Step away from the walls--you're getting too close to the walls".
Then, the caterer, who was paid WAAAAAAAAY too much money, starts serving dinner using desert plates.  No, really.  And when someone wanted a beverage, they would pour the soda into a small up and not give you the can--sort of like on an airline.  Which would be fine, except the line of people waiting to be served was around 100.  So you would drink your soda, or beer, or whatever---and then go to get another one and have to wait in line for 30 minutes.  You might say that a few people were getting peeved.  Now, in keeping with another fine clerk's office tradition, the annual holiday party had a $25 charge.  (A Christmas party where you had to pay $25---is that a hoot or what?  Can you imagine if I charged $25 how great my last reception could've been?)  Now making things all that much more interesting is that there were apparently about 30 party crashers who decided to show up without benefit of having paid the admission fee.  Which means....go ahead...take a shot....what happened?
Yep, they ran out of food and beverage!!
Everyone....join in with me...."Its the ghost of Bob Lockwood!!  WOOOOOOO!"
One of my supervisors showed up and all that they had left to drink was white wine and Diet 7-Up.  Man, anything but that and you are just camping out!
So on Monday, as word of the disaster went out, some questions started being raised.  Like...why the fuck did we have to pay $25 for a holiday party??  Anyway, after some digging, we met with the party organizer, who explained what happened.
Hey, I felt for her--she was in a no win situation. The biggest problem that I had was that she had only gotten 3 estimates for the location and the caterer.  I think she could have gotten a lot more and had it done at someplace other than a museum with a bunch of fussy employees and security guards.  Something tells me with all my questions that I'm going to be appointed to the holiday party committee next year.
Oh joy!

So, remember that laptop that my lovely bride bought me for my birthday?  Yeah, that one.  Well, my man Mike D comes over last night because we STILL have not been able to use the thing---ya know--as it was intended....wireless.  Kim had tried to hook the router up, but for some reason was unsuccessful.  So Mike comes over, and naturally (the family electronic curse)....it still didn't work.  So we called the old 800 line for help....and get a guy who's name...I'm not making this up...was Hashish.
Poor Mike was on the phone with the guy for over an hour, and had to reconfigure all sort of shit, and go back into the Doss mode to install whatever needed to be installed.  But it was successful!  So then I go over to the laptop, fire it up....and.....
It still didn't work.
I may have to kill myself.
Back to BEST BUY on Saturday.  UGH.

Later,
Jeff