Back in the Day...

In a little while I am going to tool up the Taconic to see my good friend and buddy, Mr. Dennis of http://www.d2stuff.com, for some beers, some barbecue and to watch the UFC PPV matches tonight.

What a great way to spend an evening.

Of course, the big highlight match is Liddell vs Couture. It seems Den is routing for Couture because of his age and his demeanor. Me -- I have no idea who I'd like to see win, in fact I'm pretty sure it does not matter to me. I know both guys are great fighters -- I just want to see a great fight. Its pretty disappointing to see someone just get taken down and get beat on till the ref stops it, especially when you are paying cash on the barrel for your blood sport.

Anyhow, Den's gotten all into MMA since I've started BJJ. He's actually probably into it a bit more than I am. If his schedule ever allows it, I think he just might wind up at the NYMAG in Poughkeepsie and getting his roll on. That'd be cool. That would mean that I'd finally have someone to Mountain Bike and BJJ train with.

We met about 6 years ago whilst working as contractors for Texaco. I'd originally been hired as an Admin Asst. and managed to transition to doing some intranet web stuff for a few departments there. I really had no idea what I was doing, but welcomed the opportunity to learn some skills create some sort of a career path. A month or so into treading water and trying to figure out what the department wanted and how the hell I was supposed to do it, they brought on Dennis to help out.

Of course, at first I ignored him. It just seemed the Texaco way. Plus he was inching in on my turf and that pissed me off. I guess he got tired of lonely office life because one day he just came over and said "Let's get some lunch". I have to mention that they gave him an office. But, the powers that be made it clear that it was not his office. He was just in it. The staff would go out of their way to reference / reinforce the relationship between Den and the office. If there was a meeting they would say: "I'll be in a meeting with Dennis in the office that he is in." It was freaking odd. But hey, that odd bunch paid him and me a ton of cash just to do exactly what they wanted for their website, no matter how fucked the requests were. We were contractors, and as such were kind of like guns. They'd just point us and fire and we'd execute the disaster they had designed.

Suffice to say that we did not get a whole lot done, but what we did do we did a whole lot of. Towards the end, when Texaco had been bought by Chevron and we knew our days were numbered, we'd just take off for a hours at a time and walk the huge campus. There was an apple tree with apples to make a stop at, a beaver pond to sit and stare at along with, and I shit you not, the occasional Coyote. Ostensibly we were in the "server room" which was far far away from our department in the first place, and a place our boss did not have access to, so it was a perfect place to "be".

Ahh, those were the days. The people there were great, we had every other Friday off and for the most part, we could do what we wanted. Plus, I cut my teeth in tech there and learned all important workplace rules of thumb like the 3x rule - that is a person needs to ask you three times to do something before you do it. Otherwise, its just a bullshit pipedream request they are not serious about and you should not waste your time. The other all important rule is Perceived Work + Actual Work = Real Work. In other words, yeah you know that you can do what's needed in about 5 minutes, but they don't know that. Why fuck yourself into increased expectations?

Of course these were lessons Mr. Den helped me learn. Oh the looks of consternation I’d get when our boss would ask for something and I’d turn it around in no time like a good Boy Scout. I learned though.

Amazingly, though, it seems I've perfected things too far because this latest job is a purgatory of productivity. I’m still dying for stuff to do. Not the worst of job fates and waaay better than having to wash a car outside in the summer in a suit. Well, nothings forever and I'm sure that at some point I'll be chalking this all up to a transitional period.

Alrighty then -- its off to beers, bbq and choke outs.